Filesystem

STATUS: PROPOSALS, DISCUSSION

Requirements/Proposals

• Filesystem/A Proposal
  • Filesystem/A/0 Proposal – a low level minimal proposal on which FS/A can be implemented using pure JS
• File API Class hierarchy proposal
• IO/B/Filesystem/Raw and IO/B/Filesystem of the IO/B proposal

Questionnaires and show of hands

• File API name preferences questionnaire
• Summary/Comparison of current File APIs used by JS engines: CommonJS File Object Survey
• Show of hands
• Join

Prior Art

• Microsoft Scripting.FileSystemObject. Used in classic ASP, WSH, HTAs.
• JavaScript File object proposal (~1998)
• Spidermonkey File object
• Synchronet provides a File Class that was originally inspired by SpiderMonkey's jsfile.c, but has been widely used and enhanced over the years.
• Ejscript's File class is still evolving, but is fairly comprehensive. It supports stackable streams such as BinaryStream, StringStream. It can also do I/O to and from a ByteArray class.
• JSExt.File
• jslibs jsio module
• wxJavascript IO module
• v8cgi has a File and Directory interfaces
• helma has two File apis. One deprecated and one current
• adobe's extendscript has a File constructor.Documentation is difficult to find online.
• generic collection/document resource (java) api (work in process)
• Opera Software's File I/O API for widgets, which will probably be standardized by the W3C Web API Working Group.
• W3C File Upload (Last version: October 2006)
• W3C - Device APIs Requirements - File System (Last version: October 2009)
• W3C File API (Last version: November 2009)

Inspiration

• (Python) PEP on new File IO http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3116/
• Java File API http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/io/File.html
• Java Output API http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/io/FileOutputStream.html
• Java Input API http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/io/FileInputStream.html
• E Secure File API http://www.erights.org/javadoc/java/io/File.html
• Joe-E Secure File System API http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/joe-e/api/org/joe_e/file/Filesystem.html
• Python Path API http://docs.python.org/library/os.path.html
• Ruby File API http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/File.html
• Ruby IO API http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/IO.html
• Perl Path::Class http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Path::Class
• PHP Filesystem http://php.net/manual/book.filesystem.php

Relevant Discussions

• writ or write?
• Filesystem API - Hobgoblin of little minds in little bike sheds with little bicycles
• Filesystem API: stat
• Filesystem API - Path(path, [fs])
• Filesystem API, Pure-JS glob implementation
• Return value of return? Partial writing?