Re: "." and ".." returned by dir()
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:59:51 -0700, "Ricardo M. Forno"
<guest at RapidEuphoria.com> wrote:
>I don't know for shure, but methinks that DOS returns the files and the
>directories ordered by date.
>If this is always true, it might be that you have some files dated earlier
>than the directories where they reside, so this may not be always true.
>This can happen if you create a directory and then you move some files to it.
A quick test showed that false (on win98).
Another quick test I tried kinda proved my theory:
I created a.txt
I created b.txt
I deleted a.txt
I created c.txt
dir() now lists c before b. Basically, it prints the internal table,
and it (the o/s) won't move files it don't have to. A second quick
test involved my test directory, containing t01..t26; I created a new
subdir, copied all the files into it, deleted t04, created a new file,
and lo and behold, the new file landed in the slot left by t04. (ymmv)
There is a pretty obvious implication for the . and .. entries which
must be created first.
Bottom line is . and .. /will/ (probably) always appear at the top of
dir() [on win98], because there is little/no reason for the os to ever
move them -- but that may not be true on NT/XP/Vista/Linux, etc: the
better bet is, indeed and of course, to code more safely.
If the hidden question was 'should I run back and modify several dozen
programs which made this assumption?', I'd say no.
Regards,
Pete
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