Subject: Re: user-homedir-pathname in dos

From: [email-masked] (Rick Taube)
Date: Fri, 6 May 94 07:50:52 GMT+0100

>  "The definition of home directory is implementation-dependent,
>  but defined in Common Lisp to mean the directory where the user
>  keeps personal files such as initialization files and mail."
>Well, how could this make sense on DOS?

i dont think this says that the function should be omitted, just that  
what "home direcotry" means will differ across ports.  i think since  
dos was intended to be a single user OS at a minimum the function  
could return "\" , since (1) you own the machine when you boot it and   
(2) that is where dos normally leaves you and also where some init]  
files are stored.  MCL and ACLPC have the same problem but provide  
the function primarily because it makes writing portable code easier.  
I think MCL and ACLPC actually get more fancy, by allowing you to  
explicitly define "home" in a config file, or using the directory  
where the image resides.

>Because otherwise you couldn't rely on
> (pathname-name (make-pathname :name something))
>being EQUAL to something.

thanks, now i understand...sure wich cl provided pathname-equal since  
equal testing returns false in cases when it needn't!
	-hkt

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From: Joachim Schrod <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 08:28:22 +0100 (MESZ)

Bruno wrote:
> could return "\" ,

The getpw{ent,uid,nam}() emulations in many DOS libraries (i.e., the
routines that set the pw_dir component of the passwd struct) do first
check for the existence of an environment variable HOME and return
its value. "\" is the fallback, often. Available user(s) are "root"
and sometimes "anonymous" or "nobody".

That might be used as a possible implementation strategy for
#'user-homedir-pathname.

	Joachim

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Joachim Schrod			Email: [email-masked]
Computer Science Department
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany