Provided by: tcl8.5-doc_8.5.19-4_all 
NAME
Tcl_FSRegister, Tcl_FSUnregister, Tcl_FSData, Tcl_FSMountsChanged,
Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath, Tcl_FSGetPathType, Tcl_FSCopyFile, Tcl_FSCopyDirectory,
Tcl_FSCreateDirectory, Tcl_FSDeleteFile, Tcl_FSRemoveDirectory, Tcl_FSRenameFile,
Tcl_FSListVolumes, Tcl_FSEvalFile, Tcl_FSEvalFileEx, Tcl_FSLoadFile,
Tcl_FSMatchInDirectory, Tcl_FSLink, Tcl_FSLstat, Tcl_FSUtime, Tcl_FSFileAttrsGet,
Tcl_FSFileAttrsSet, Tcl_FSFileAttrStrings, Tcl_FSStat, Tcl_FSAccess,
Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel, Tcl_FSGetCwd, Tcl_FSChdir, Tcl_FSPathSeparator, Tcl_FSJoinPath,
Tcl_FSSplitPath, Tcl_FSEqualPaths, Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath, Tcl_FSJoinToPath,
Tcl_FSConvertToPathType, Tcl_FSGetInternalRep, Tcl_FSGetTranslatedPath,
Tcl_FSGetTranslatedStringPath, Tcl_FSNewNativePath, Tcl_FSGetNativePath,
Tcl_FSFileSystemInfo, Tcl_AllocStatBuf - procedures to interact with any filesystem
SYNOPSIS
#include <tcl.h>
int
Tcl_FSRegister(clientData, fsPtr)
int
Tcl_FSUnregister(fsPtr)
ClientData
Tcl_FSData(fsPtr)
void
Tcl_FSMountsChanged(fsPtr)
Tcl_Filesystem*
Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath(pathPtr)
Tcl_PathType
Tcl_FSGetPathType(pathPtr)
int
Tcl_FSCopyFile(srcPathPtr, destPathPtr)
int
Tcl_FSCopyDirectory(srcPathPtr, destPathPtr, errorPtr)
int
Tcl_FSCreateDirectory(pathPtr)
int
Tcl_FSDeleteFile(pathPtr)
int
Tcl_FSRemoveDirectory(pathPtr, int recursive, errorPtr)
int
Tcl_FSRenameFile(srcPathPtr, destPathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSListVolumes(void)
int │
Tcl_FSEvalFileEx(interp, pathPtr, encodingName) │
int
Tcl_FSEvalFile(interp, pathPtr)
int
Tcl_FSLoadFile(interp, pathPtr, sym1, sym2, proc1Ptr, proc2Ptr,
handlePtr, unloadProcPtr)
int
Tcl_FSMatchInDirectory(interp, resultPtr, pathPtr, pattern, types)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSLink(linkNamePtr, toPtr, linkAction)
int
Tcl_FSLstat(pathPtr, statPtr)
int
Tcl_FSUtime(pathPtr, tval)
int
Tcl_FSFileAttrsGet(interp, int index, pathPtr, objPtrRef)
int
Tcl_FSFileAttrsSet(interp, int index, pathPtr, Tcl_Obj *objPtr)
const char**
Tcl_FSFileAttrStrings(pathPtr, objPtrRef)
int
Tcl_FSStat(pathPtr, statPtr)
int
Tcl_FSAccess(pathPtr, mode)
Tcl_Channel
Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel(interp, pathPtr, modeString, permissions)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSGetCwd(interp)
int
Tcl_FSChdir(pathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSPathSeparator(pathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSJoinPath(listObj, elements)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSSplitPath(pathPtr, lenPtr)
int
Tcl_FSEqualPaths(firstPtr, secondPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath(interp, pathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSJoinToPath(basePtr, objc, objv)
int
Tcl_FSConvertToPathType(interp, pathPtr)
ClientData
Tcl_FSGetInternalRep(pathPtr, fsPtr)
Tcl_Obj *
Tcl_FSGetTranslatedPath(interp, pathPtr)
const char *
Tcl_FSGetTranslatedStringPath(interp, pathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSNewNativePath(fsPtr, clientData)
const char *
Tcl_FSGetNativePath(pathPtr)
Tcl_Obj*
Tcl_FSFileSystemInfo(pathPtr)
Tcl_StatBuf*
Tcl_AllocStatBuf()
ARGUMENTS
Tcl_Filesystem *fsPtr (in) Points to a structure containing the
addresses of procedures that can be
called to perform the various
filesystem operations.
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr (in) The path represented by this object is
used for the operation in question. If
the object does not already have an
internal path representation, it will
be converted to have one.
Tcl_Obj *srcPathPtr (in) As for pathPtr, but used for the source
file for a copy or rename operation.
Tcl_Obj *destPathPtr (in) As for pathPtr, but used for the
destination filename for a copy or
rename operation.
const char *encodingName (in) The encoding of the data stored in the
file identified by pathPtr and to be
evaluated.
const char *pattern (in) Only files or directories matching this
pattern will be returned.
Tcl_GlobTypeData *types (in) Only files or directories matching the
type descriptions contained in this
structure will be returned. This
parameter may be NULL.
Tcl_Interp *interp (in) Interpreter to use either for results,
evaluation, or reporting error
messages.
ClientData clientData (in) The native description of the path
object to create.
Tcl_Obj *firstPtr (in) The first of two path objects to
compare. The object may be converted
to path type.
Tcl_Obj *secondPtr (in) The second of two path objects to
compare. The object may be converted
to path type.
Tcl_Obj *listObj (in) The list of path elements to operate on
with a join operation.
int elements (in) If non-negative, the number of elements
in the listObj which should be joined
together. If negative, then all
elements are joined.
Tcl_Obj **errorPtr (out) In the case of an error, filled with an
object containing the name of the file
which caused an error in the various
copy/rename operations.
Tcl_Obj **objPtrRef (out) Filled with an object containing the
result of the operation.
Tcl_Obj *resultPtr (out) Pre-allocated object in which to store
(using Tcl_ListObjAppendElement) the
list of files or directories which are
successfully matched.
int mode (in) Mask consisting of one or more of R_OK,
W_OK, X_OK and F_OK. R_OK, W_OK and
X_OK request checking whether the file
exists and has read, write and
execute permissions, respectively.
F_OK just requests checking for the
existence of the file.
Tcl_StatBuf *statPtr (out) The structure that contains the result
of a stat or lstat operation.
const char *sym1 (in) Name of a procedure to look up in the
file's symbol table
const char *sym2 (in) Name of a procedure to look up in the
file's symbol table
Tcl_PackageInitProc **proc1Ptr (out) Filled with the init function for this
code.
Tcl_PackageInitProc **proc2Ptr (out) Filled with the safe-init function for
this code.
ClientData *clientDataPtr (out) Filled with the clientData value to
pass to this code's unload function
when it is called.
Tcl_LoadHandle *handlePtr (out) Filled with an abstract token
representing the loaded file.
Tcl_FSUnloadFileProc **unloadProcPtr (out) Filled with the function to use to
unload this piece of code.
utimbuf *tval (in) The access and modification times in
this structure are read and used to set
those values for a given file.
const char *modeString (in) Specifies how the file is to be
accessed. May have any of the values
allowed for the mode argument to the
Tcl open command.
int permissions (in) POSIX-style permission flags such as
0644. If a new file is created, these
permissions will be set on the created
file.
int *lenPtr (out) If non-NULL, filled with the number of
elements in the split path.
Tcl_Obj *basePtr (in) The base path on to which to join the
given elements. May be NULL.
int objc (in) The number of elements in objv.
Tcl_Obj *const objv[] (in) The elements to join to the given base
path.
Tcl_Obj *linkNamePtr (in) The name of the link to be created or
read.
Tcl_Obj *toPtr (in) What the link called linkNamePtr should
be linked to, or NULL if the symbolic
link specified by linkNamePtr is to be
read.
int linkAction (in) OR-ed combination of flags indicating
what kind of link should be created
(will be ignored if toPtr is NULL).
Valid bits to set are
TCL_CREATE_SYMBOLIC_LINK and
TCL_CREATE_HARD_LINK. When both flags
are set and the underlying filesystem
can do either, symbolic links are
preferred.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
DESCRIPTION
There are several reasons for calling the Tcl_FS API functions (e.g. Tcl_FSAccess and
Tcl_FSStat) rather than calling system level functions like access and stat directly.
First, they will work cross-platform, so an extension which calls them should work
unmodified on Unix and Windows. Second, the Windows implementation of some of these
functions fixes some bugs in the system level calls. Third, these function calls deal
with any “Utf to platform-native” path conversions which may be required (and may cache
the results of such conversions for greater efficiency on subsequent calls). Fourth, and
perhaps most importantly, all of these functions are “virtual filesystem aware”. Any
virtual filesystem (VFS for short) which has been registered (through Tcl_FSRegister) may
reroute file access to alternative media or access methods. This means that all of these
functions (and therefore the corresponding file, glob, pwd, cd, open, etc. Tcl commands)
may be operate on “files” which are not native files in the native filesystem. This also
means that any Tcl extension which accesses the filesystem (FS for short) through this API
is automatically “virtual filesystem aware”. Of course, if an extension accesses the
native filesystem directly (through platform-specific APIs, for example), then Tcl cannot
intercept such calls.
If appropriate VFSes have been registered, the “files” may, to give two examples, be
remote (e.g. situated on a remote ftp server) or archived (e.g. lying inside a .zip
archive). Such registered filesystems provide a lookup table of functions to implement
all or some of the functionality listed here. Finally, the Tcl_FSStat and Tcl_FSLstat
calls abstract away from what the “struct stat” buffer is actually declared to be,
allowing the same code to be used both on systems with and systems without support for
files larger than 2GB in size.
The Tcl_FS API is objectified and may cache internal representations and other path-
related strings (e.g. the current working directory). One side-effect of this is that one
must not pass in objects with a reference count of zero to any of these functions. If
such calls were handled, they might result in memory leaks (under some circumstances, the
filesystem code may wish to retain a reference to the passed in object, and so one must
not assume that after any of these calls return, the object still has a reference count of
zero - it may have been incremented) or in a direct segmentation fault (or other memory
access error) due to the object being freed part way through the complex object
manipulation required to ensure that the path is fully normalized and absolute for
filesystem determination. The practical lesson to learn from this is that
Tcl_Obj *path = Tcl_NewStringObj(...);
Tcl_FSWhatever(path);
Tcl_DecrRefCount(path);
is wrong, and may cause memory errors. The path must have its reference count incremented
before passing it in, or decrementing it. For this reason, objects with a reference count
of zero are considered not to be valid filesystem paths and calling any Tcl_FS API
function with such an object will result in no action being taken.
FS API FUNCTIONS
Tcl_FSCopyFile attempts to copy the file given by srcPathPtr to the path name given by
destPathPtr. If the two paths given lie in the same filesystem (according to
Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath) then that filesystem's “copy file” function is called (if it
is non-NULL). Otherwise the function returns -1 and sets the errno global C variable to
the “EXDEV” POSIX error code (which signifies a “cross-domain link”).
Tcl_FSCopyDirectory attempts to copy the directory given by srcPathPtr to the path name
given by destPathPtr. If the two paths given lie in the same filesystem (according to
Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath) then that filesystem's “copy file” function is called (if it
is non-NULL). Otherwise the function returns -1 and sets the errno global C variable to
the “EXDEV” POSIX error code (which signifies a “cross-domain link”).
Tcl_FSCreateDirectory attempts to create the directory given by pathPtr by calling the
owning filesystem's “create directory” function.
Tcl_FSDeleteFile attempts to delete the file given by pathPtr by calling the owning
filesystem's “delete file” function.
Tcl_FSRemoveDirectory attempts to remove the directory given by pathPtr by calling the
owning filesystem's “remove directory” function.
Tcl_FSRenameFile attempts to rename the file or directory given by srcPathPtr to the path
name given by destPathPtr. If the two paths given lie in the same filesystem (according
to Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath) then that filesystem's “rename file” function is called (if
it is non-NULL). Otherwise the function returns -1 and sets the errno global C variable
to the “EXDEV” POSIX error code (which signifies a “cross-domain link”).
Tcl_FSListVolumes calls each filesystem which has a non-NULL “list volumes” function and
asks them to return their list of root volumes. It accumulates the return values in a
list which is returned to the caller (with a reference count of 0).
Tcl_FSEvalFileEx reads the file given by pathPtr using the encoding identified by │
encodingName and evaluates its contents as a Tcl script. It returns the same information │
as Tcl_EvalObjEx. If encodingName is NULL, the system encoding is used for reading the │
file contents. If the file could not be read then a Tcl error is returned to describe why │
the file could not be read. The eofchar for files is “\32” (^Z) for all platforms. If │
you require a “^Z” in code for string comparison, you can use “\032” or “\u001a”, which │
will be safely substituted by the Tcl interpreter into “^Z”. Tcl_FSEvalFile is a simpler │
version of Tcl_FSEvalFileEx that always uses the system encoding when reading the file.
Tcl_FSLoadFile dynamically loads a binary code file into memory and returns the addresses
of two procedures within that file, if they are defined. The appropriate function for the
filesystem to which pathPtr belongs will be called. If that filesystem does not implement
this function (most virtual filesystems will not, because of OS limitations in dynamically
loading binary code), Tcl will attempt to copy the file to a temporary directory and load
that temporary file.
Returns a standard Tcl completion code. If an error occurs, an error message is left in
the interp's result.
Tcl_FSMatchInDirectory is used by the globbing code to search a directory for all files
which match a given pattern. The appropriate function for the filesystem to which pathPtr
belongs will be called.
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in
globbing. Error messages are placed in interp (unless interp is NULL, which is allowed),
but good results are placed in the resultPtr given.
Note that the glob code implements recursive patterns internally, so this function will
only ever be passed simple patterns, which can be matched using the logic of string match.
To handle recursion, Tcl will call this function frequently asking only for directories to
be returned. A special case of being called with a NULL pattern indicates that the path
needs to be checked only for the correct type.
Tcl_FSLink replaces the library version of readlink, and extends it to support the
creation of links. The appropriate function for the filesystem to which linkNamePtr
belongs will be called.
If the toPtr is NULL, a “read link” action is performed. The result is a Tcl_Obj
specifying the contents of the symbolic link given by linkNamePtr, or NULL if the link
could not be read. The result is owned by the caller, which should call Tcl_DecrRefCount
when the result is no longer needed. If the toPtr is not NULL, Tcl should create a link
of one of the types passed in in the linkAction flag. This flag is an ORed combination of
TCL_CREATE_SYMBOLIC_LINK and TCL_CREATE_HARD_LINK. Where a choice exists (i.e. more than
one flag is passed in), the Tcl convention is to prefer symbolic links. When a link is
successfully created, the return value should be toPtr (which is therefore already owned
by the caller). If unsuccessful, NULL is returned.
Tcl_FSLstat fills the stat structure statPtr with information about the specified file.
You do not need any access rights to the file to get this information but you need search
rights to all directories named in the path leading to the file. The stat structure
includes info regarding device, inode (always 0 on Windows), privilege mode, nlink (always
1 on Windows), user id (always 0 on Windows), group id (always 0 on Windows), rdev (same
as device on Windows), size, last access time, last modification time, and last metadata
change time.
If path exists, Tcl_FSLstat returns 0 and the stat structure is filled with data.
Otherwise, -1 is returned, and no stat info is given.
Tcl_FSUtime replaces the library version of utime.
This returns 0 on success and -1 on error (as per the utime documentation). If
successful, the function will update the “atime” and “mtime” values of the file given.
Tcl_FSFileAttrsGet implements read access for the hookable file attributes subcommand.
The appropriate function for the filesystem to which pathPtr belongs will be called.
If the result is TCL_OK, then an object was placed in objPtrRef, which will only be
temporarily valid (unless Tcl_IncrRefCount is called).
Tcl_FSFileAttrsSet implements write access for the hookable file attributes subcommand.
The appropriate function for the filesystem to which pathPtr belongs will be called.
Tcl_FSFileAttrStrings implements part of the hookable file attributes subcommand. The
appropriate function for the filesystem to which pathPtr belongs will be called.
The called procedure may either return an array of strings, or may instead return NULL and
place a Tcl list into the given objPtrRef. Tcl will take that list and first increment
its reference count before using it. On completion of that use, Tcl will decrement its
reference count. Hence if the list should be disposed of by Tcl when done, it should have
a reference count of zero, and if the list should not be disposed of, the filesystem
should ensure it retains a reference count to the object.
Tcl_FSAccess checks whether the process would be allowed to read, write or test for
existence of the file (or other filesystem object) whose name is pathname. If pathname
is a symbolic link on Unix, then permissions of the file referred by this symbolic link
are tested.
On success (all requested permissions granted), zero is returned. On error (at least one
bit in mode asked for a permission that is denied, or some other error occurred), -1 is
returned.
Tcl_FSStat fills the stat structure statPtr with information about the specified file.
You do not need any access rights to the file to get this information but you need search
rights to all directories named in the path leading to the file. The stat structure
includes info regarding device, inode (always 0 on Windows), privilege mode, nlink (always
1 on Windows), user id (always 0 on Windows), group id (always 0 on Windows), rdev (same
as device on Windows), size, last access time, last modification time, and last metadata
change time.
If path exists, Tcl_FSStat returns 0 and the stat structure is filled with data.
Otherwise, -1 is returned, and no stat info is given.
Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel opens a file specified by pathPtr and returns a channel handle that
can be used to perform input and output on the file. This API is modeled after the fopen
procedure of the Unix standard I/O library. The syntax and meaning of all arguments is
similar to those given in the Tcl open command when opening a file. If an error occurs
while opening the channel, Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel returns NULL and records a POSIX error
code that can be retrieved with Tcl_GetErrno. In addition, if interp is non-NULL,
Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel leaves an error message in interp's result after any error.
The newly created channel is not registered in the supplied interpreter; to register it,
use Tcl_RegisterChannel. If one of the standard channels, stdin, stdout or stderr was
previously closed, the act of creating the new channel also assigns it as a replacement
for the standard channel.
Tcl_FSGetCwd replaces the library version of getcwd.
It returns the Tcl library's current working directory. This may be different to the
native platform's working directory, which happens when the current working directory is
not in the native filesystem.
The result is a pointer to a Tcl_Obj specifying the current directory, or NULL if the
current directory could not be determined. If NULL is returned, an error message is left
in the interp's result.
The result already has its reference count incremented for the caller. When it is no
longer needed, that reference count should be decremented. This is needed for thread-
safety purposes, to allow multiple threads to access this and related functions, while
ensuring the results are always valid.
Tcl_FSChdir replaces the library version of chdir. The path is normalized and then passed
to the filesystem which claims it. If that filesystem does not implement this function,
Tcl will fallback to a combination of stat and access to check whether the directory
exists and has appropriate permissions.
For results, see chdir documentation. If successful, we keep a record of the successful
path in cwdPathPtr for subsequent calls to Tcl_FSGetCwd.
Tcl_FSPathSeparator returns the separator character to be used for most specific element
of the path specified by pathPtr (i.e. the last part of the path).
The separator is returned as a Tcl_Obj containing a string of length 1. If the path is
invalid, NULL is returned.
Tcl_FSJoinPath takes the given Tcl_Obj, which must be a valid list (which is allowed to
have a reference count of zero), and returns the path object given by considering the
first elements elements as valid path segments (each path segment may be a complete path,
a partial path or just a single possible directory or file name). If any path segment is
actually an absolute path, then all prior path segments are discarded. If elements is
less than 0, we use the entire list.
It is possible that the returned object is actually an element of the given list, so the
caller should be careful to increment the reference count of the result before freeing the
list.
The returned object, typically with a reference count of zero (but it could be shared
under some conditions), contains the joined path. The caller must add a reference count
to the object before using it. In particular, the returned object could be an element of
the given list, so freeing the list might free the object prematurely if no reference
count has been taken. If the number of elements is zero, then the returned object will be
an empty-string Tcl_Obj.
Tcl_FSSplitPath takes the given Tcl_Obj, which should be a valid path, and returns a Tcl
list object containing each segment of that path as an element. It returns a list object
with a reference count of zero. If the passed in lenPtr is non-NULL, the variable it
points to will be updated to contain the number of elements in the returned list.
Tcl_FSEqualPaths tests whether the two paths given represent the same filesystem object
It returns 1 if the paths are equal, and 0 if they are different. If either path is NULL,
0 is always returned.
Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath this important function attempts to extract from the given Tcl_Obj
a unique normalized path representation, whose string value can be used as a unique
identifier for the file.
It returns the normalized path object, owned by Tcl, or NULL if the path was invalid or
could otherwise not be successfully converted. Extraction of absolute, normalized paths
is very efficient (because the filesystem operates on these representations internally),
although the result when the filesystem contains numerous symbolic links may not be the
most user-friendly version of a path. The return value is owned by Tcl and has a lifetime
equivalent to that of the pathPtr passed in (unless that is a relative path, in which case
the normalized path object may be freed any time the cwd changes) - the caller can of
course increment the refCount if it wishes to maintain a copy for longer.
Tcl_FSJoinToPath takes the given object, which should usually be a valid path or NULL, and
joins onto it the array of paths segments given.
Returns object, typically with refCount of zero (but it could be shared under some
conditions), containing the joined path. The caller must add a refCount to the object
before using it. If any of the objects passed into this function (pathPtr or path
elements) have a refCount of zero, they will be freed when this function returns.
Tcl_FSConvertToPathType tries to convert the given Tcl_Obj to a valid Tcl path type,
taking account of the fact that the cwd may have changed even if this object is already
supposedly of the correct type. The filename may begin with “~” (to indicate current
user's home directory) or “~<user>” (to indicate any user's home directory).
If the conversion succeeds (i.e. the object is a valid path in one of the current
filesystems), then TCL_OK is returned. Otherwise TCL_ERROR is returned, and an error
message may be left in the interpreter.
Tcl_FSGetInternalRep extracts the internal representation of a given path object, in the
given filesystem. If the path object belongs to a different filesystem, we return NULL.
If the internal representation is currently NULL, we attempt to generate it, by calling
the filesystem's Tcl_FSCreateInternalRepProc.
Returns NULL or a valid internal path representation. This internal representation is
cached, so that repeated calls to this function will not require additional conversions.
Tcl_FSGetTranslatedPath attempts to extract the translated path from the given Tcl_Obj.
If the translation succeeds (i.e. the object is a valid path), then it is returned.
Otherwise NULL will be returned, and an error message may be left in the interpreter. A
“translated” path is one which contains no “~” or “~user” sequences (these have been
expanded to their current representation in the filesystem). The object returned is owned
by the caller, which must store it or call Tcl_DecrRefCount to ensure memory is freed.
This function is of little practical use, and Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath or Tcl_GetNativePath
are usually better functions to use for most purposes.
Tcl_FSGetTranslatedStringPath does the same as Tcl_FSGetTranslatedPath, but returns a
character string or NULL. The string returned is dynamically allocated and owned by the
caller, which must store it or call ckfree to ensure it is freed. Again,
Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath or Tcl_GetNativePath are usually better functions to use for most
purposes.
Tcl_FSNewNativePath performs something like the reverse of the usual obj->path->nativerep
conversions. If some code retrieves a path in native form (from, e.g. readlink or a
native dialog), and that path is to be used at the Tcl level, then calling this function
is an efficient way of creating the appropriate path object type.
The resulting object is a pure “path” object, which will only receive a UTF-8 string
representation if that is required by some Tcl code.
Tcl_FSGetNativePath is for use by the Win/Unix native filesystems, so that they can easily
retrieve the native (char* or TCHAR*) representation of a path. This function is a
convenience wrapper around Tcl_FSGetInternalRep, and assumes the native representation is
string-based. It may be desirable in the future to have non-string-based native
representations (for example, on MacOSX, a representation using a fileSpec of FSRef
structure would probably be more efficient). On Windows a full Unicode representation
would allow for paths of unlimited length. Currently the representation is simply a
character string which may contain either the relative path or a complete, absolute
normalized path in the native encoding (complex conditions dictate which of these will be
provided, so neither can be relied upon, unless the path is known to be absolute). If you
need a native path which must be absolute, then you should ask for the native version of a
normalized path. If for some reason a non-absolute, non-normalized version of the path is
needed, that must be constructed separately (e.g. using Tcl_FSGetTranslatedPath).
The native representation is cached so that repeated calls to this function will not
require additional conversions. The return value is owned by Tcl and has a lifetime
equivalent to that of the pathPtr passed in (unless that is a relative path, in which case
the native representation may be freed any time the cwd changes).
Tcl_FSFileSystemInfo returns a list of two elements. The first element is the name of the
filesystem (e.g. “native”, “vfs”, “zip”, or “prowrap”, perhaps), and the second is the
particular type of the given path within that filesystem (which is filesystem dependent).
The second element may be empty if the filesystem does not provide a further
categorization of files.
A valid list object is returned, unless the path object is not recognized, when NULL will
be returned.
Tcl_FSGetFileSystemForPath returns the a pointer to the Tcl_Filesystem which accepts this
path as valid.
If no filesystem will accept the path, NULL is returned.
Tcl_FSGetPathType determines whether the given path is relative to the current directory,
relative to the current volume, or absolute.
It returns one of TCL_PATH_ABSOLUTE, TCL_PATH_RELATIVE, or TCL_PATH_VOLUME_RELATIVE
Tcl_AllocStatBuf allocates a Tcl_StatBuf on the system heap (which may be deallocated by
being passed to ckfree.) This allows extensions to invoke Tcl_FSStat and Tcl_FSLStat
without being dependent on the size of the buffer. That in turn depends on the flags used
to build Tcl.
THE VIRTUAL FILESYSTEM API
A filesystem provides a Tcl_Filesystem structure that contains pointers to functions that
implement the various operations on a filesystem; these operations are invoked as needed
by the generic layer, which generally occurs through the functions listed above.
The Tcl_Filesystem structures are manipulated using the following methods.
Tcl_FSRegister takes a pointer to a filesystem structure and an optional piece of data to
associated with that filesystem. On calling this function, Tcl will attach the filesystem
to the list of known filesystems, and it will become fully functional immediately. Tcl
does not check if the same filesystem is registered multiple times (and in general that is
not a good thing to do). TCL_OK will be returned.
Tcl_FSUnregister removes the given filesystem structure from the list of known
filesystems, if it is known, and returns TCL_OK. If the filesystem is not currently
registered, TCL_ERROR is returned.
Tcl_FSData will return the ClientData associated with the given filesystem, if that
filesystem is registered. Otherwise it will return NULL.
Tcl_FSMountsChanged is used to inform the Tcl's core that the set of mount points for the
given (already registered) filesystem have changed, and that cached file representations
may therefore no longer be correct.
THE TCL_FILESYSTEM STRUCTURE
The Tcl_Filesystem structure contains the following fields:
typedef struct Tcl_Filesystem {
const char *typeName;
int structureLength;
Tcl_FSVersion version;
Tcl_FSPathInFilesystemProc *pathInFilesystemProc;
Tcl_FSDupInternalRepProc *dupInternalRepProc;
Tcl_FSFreeInternalRepProc *freeInternalRepProc;
Tcl_FSInternalToNormalizedProc *internalToNormalizedProc;
Tcl_FSCreateInternalRepProc *createInternalRepProc;
Tcl_FSNormalizePathProc *normalizePathProc;
Tcl_FSFilesystemPathTypeProc *filesystemPathTypeProc;
Tcl_FSFilesystemSeparatorProc *filesystemSeparatorProc;
Tcl_FSStatProc *statProc;
Tcl_FSAccessProc *accessProc;
Tcl_FSOpenFileChannelProc *openFileChannelProc;
Tcl_FSMatchInDirectoryProc *matchInDirectoryProc;
Tcl_FSUtimeProc *utimeProc;
Tcl_FSLinkProc *linkProc;
Tcl_FSListVolumesProc *listVolumesProc;
Tcl_FSFileAttrStringsProc *fileAttrStringsProc;
Tcl_FSFileAttrsGetProc *fileAttrsGetProc;
Tcl_FSFileAttrsSetProc *fileAttrsSetProc;
Tcl_FSCreateDirectoryProc *createDirectoryProc;
Tcl_FSRemoveDirectoryProc *removeDirectoryProc;
Tcl_FSDeleteFileProc *deleteFileProc;
Tcl_FSCopyFileProc *copyFileProc;
Tcl_FSRenameFileProc *renameFileProc;
Tcl_FSCopyDirectoryProc *copyDirectoryProc;
Tcl_FSLstatProc *lstatProc;
Tcl_FSLoadFileProc *loadFileProc;
Tcl_FSGetCwdProc *getCwdProc;
Tcl_FSChdirProc *chdirProc;
} Tcl_Filesystem;
Except for the first three fields in this structure which contain simple data elements,
all entries contain addresses of functions called by the generic filesystem layer to
perform the complete range of filesystem related actions.
The many functions in this structure are broken down into three categories: infrastructure
functions (almost all of which must be implemented), operational functions (which must be
implemented if a complete filesystem is provided), and efficiency functions (which need
only be implemented if they can be done so efficiently, or if they have side-effects which
are required by the filesystem; Tcl has less efficient emulations it can fall back on).
It is important to note that, in the current version of Tcl, most of these fallbacks are
only used to handle commands initiated in Tcl, not in C. What this means is, that if a
file rename command is issued in Tcl, and the relevant filesystem(s) do not implement
their Tcl_FSRenameFileProc, Tcl's core will instead fallback on a combination of other
filesystem functions (it will use Tcl_FSCopyFileProc followed by Tcl_FSDeleteFileProc, and
if Tcl_FSCopyFileProc is not implemented there is a further fallback). However, if a
Tcl_FSRenameFileProc command is issued at the C level, no such fallbacks occur. This is
true except for the last four entries in the filesystem table (lstat, load, getcwd and
chdir) for which fallbacks do in fact occur at the C level.
Any functions which take path names in Tcl_Obj form take those names in UTF-8 form. The
filesystem infrastructure API is designed to support efficient, cached conversion of these
UTF-8 paths to other native representations.
EXAMPLE FILESYSTEM DEFINITION
Here is the filesystem lookup table used by the “vfs” extension which allows filesystem
actions to be implemented in Tcl.
static Tcl_Filesystem vfsFilesystem = {
"tclvfs",
sizeof(Tcl_Filesystem),
TCL_FILESYSTEM_VERSION_1,
&VfsPathInFilesystem,
&VfsDupInternalRep,
&VfsFreeInternalRep,
/* No internal to normalized, since we don't create
* any pure 'internal' Tcl_Obj path representations */
NULL,
/* No create native rep function, since we don't use
* it and don't choose to support uses of
* Tcl_FSNewNativePath */
NULL,
/* Normalize path isn't needed - we assume paths only
* have one representation */
NULL,
&VfsFilesystemPathType,
&VfsFilesystemSeparator,
&VfsStat,
&VfsAccess,
&VfsOpenFileChannel,
&VfsMatchInDirectory,
&VfsUtime,
/* We choose not to support symbolic links inside our
* VFS's */
NULL,
&VfsListVolumes,
&VfsFileAttrStrings,
&VfsFileAttrsGet,
&VfsFileAttrsSet,
&VfsCreateDirectory,
&VfsRemoveDirectory,
&VfsDeleteFile,
/* No copy file; use the core fallback mechanism */
NULL,
/* No rename file; use the core fallback mechanism */
NULL,
/* No copy directory; use the core fallback mechanism */
NULL,
/* Core will use stat for lstat */
NULL,
/* No load; use the core fallback mechanism */
NULL,
/* We don't need a getcwd or chdir; the core's own
* internal value is suitable */
NULL,
NULL
};
FILESYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE
These fields contain basic information about the filesystem structure and addresses of
functions which are used to associate a particular filesystem with a file path, and deal
with the internal handling of path representations, for example copying and freeing such
representations.
TYPENAME
The typeName field contains a null-terminated string that identifies the type of the
filesystem implemented, e.g. “native”, “zip” or “vfs”.
STRUCTURE LENGTH
The structureLength field is generally implemented as sizeof(Tcl_Filesystem), and is there
to allow easier binary backwards compatibility if the size of the structure changes in a
future Tcl release.
VERSION
The version field should be set to TCL_FILESYSTEM_VERSION_1.
PATHINFILESYSTEMPROC
The pathInFilesystemProc field contains the address of a function which is called to
determine whether a given path object belongs to this filesystem or not. Tcl will only
call the rest of the filesystem functions with a path for which this function has returned
TCL_OK. If the path does not belong, -1 should be returned (the behaviour of Tcl for any
other return value is not defined). If TCL_OK is returned, then the optional
clientDataPtr output parameter can be used to return an internal (filesystem specific)
representation of the path, which will be cached inside the path object, and may be
retrieved efficiently by the other filesystem functions. Tcl will simultaneously cache
the fact that this path belongs to this filesystem. Such caches are invalidated when
filesystem structures are added or removed from Tcl's internal list of known filesystems.
typedef int Tcl_FSPathInFilesystemProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
ClientData *clientDataPtr);
DUPINTERNALREPPROC
This function makes a copy of a path's internal representation, and is called when Tcl
needs to duplicate a path object. If NULL, Tcl will simply not copy the internal
representation, which may then need to be regenerated later.
typedef ClientData Tcl_FSDupInternalRepProc(
ClientData clientData);
FREEINTERNALREPPROC
Free the internal representation. This must be implemented if internal representations
need freeing (i.e. if some memory is allocated when an internal representation is
generated), but may otherwise be NULL.
typedef void Tcl_FSFreeInternalRepProc(
ClientData clientData);
INTERNALTONORMALIZEDPROC
Function to convert internal representation to a normalized path. Only required if the
filesystem creates pure path objects with no string/path representation. The return value
is a Tcl object whose string representation is the normalized path.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSInternalToNormalizedProc(
ClientData clientData);
CREATEINTERNALREPPROC
Function to take a path object, and calculate an internal representation for it, and store
that native representation in the object. May be NULL if paths have no internal
representation, or if the Tcl_FSPathInFilesystemProc for this filesystem always
immediately creates an internal representation for paths it accepts.
typedef ClientData Tcl_FSCreateInternalRepProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
NORMALIZEPATHPROC
Function to normalize a path. Should be implemented for all filesystems which can have
multiple string representations for the same path object. In Tcl, every “path” must have
a single unique “normalized” string representation. Depending on the filesystem, there
may be more than one unnormalized string representation which refers to that path (e.g. a
relative path, a path with different character case if the filesystem is case insensitive,
a path contain a reference to a home directory such as “~”, a path containing symbolic
links, etc). If the very last component in the path is a symbolic link, it should not be
converted into the object it points to (but its case or other aspects should be made
unique). All other path components should be converted from symbolic links. This one
exception is required to agree with Tcl's semantics with file delete, file rename, file
copy operating on symbolic links. This function may be called with nextCheckpoint either
at the beginning of the path (i.e. zero), at the end of the path, or at any intermediate
file separator in the path. It will never point to any other arbitrary position in the
path. In the last of the three valid cases, the implementation can assume that the path up
to and including the file separator is known and normalized.
typedef int Tcl_FSNormalizePathProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
int nextCheckpoint);
FILESYSTEM OPERATIONS
The fields in this section of the structure contain addresses of functions which are
called to carry out the basic filesystem operations. A filesystem which expects to be
used with the complete standard Tcl command set must implement all of these. If some of
them are not implemented, then certain Tcl commands may fail when operating on paths
within that filesystem. However, in some instances this may be desirable (for example, a
read-only filesystem should not implement the last four functions, and a filesystem which
does not support symbolic links need not implement the readlink function, etc. The Tcl
core expects filesystems to behave in this way).
FILESYSTEMPATHTYPEPROC
Function to determine the type of a path in this filesystem. May be NULL, in which case
no type information will be available to users of the filesystem. The “type” is used only
for informational purposes, and should be returned as the string representation of the
Tcl_Obj which is returned. A typical return value might be “networked”, “zip” or “ftp”.
The Tcl_Obj result is owned by the filesystem and so Tcl will increment the refCount of
that object if it wishes to retain a reference to it.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSFilesystemPathTypeProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
FILESYSTEMSEPARATORPROC
Function to return the separator character(s) for this filesystem. This need only be
implemented if the filesystem wishes to use a different separator than the standard string
“/”. Amongst other uses, it is returned by the file separator command. The return value
should be an object with refCount of zero.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSFilesystemSeparatorProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
STATPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSStat call. Must be implemented for any reasonable filesystem,
since many Tcl level commands depend crucially upon it (e.g. file atime, file isdirectory,
file size, glob).
typedef int Tcl_FSStatProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_StatBuf *statPtr);
The Tcl_FSStatProc fills the stat structure statPtr with information about the specified
file. You do not need any access rights to the file to get this information but you need
search rights to all directories named in the path leading to the file. The stat
structure includes info regarding device, inode (always 0 on Windows), privilege mode,
nlink (always 1 on Windows), user id (always 0 on Windows), group id (always 0 on
Windows), rdev (same as device on Windows), size, last access time, last modification
time, and last metadata change time.
If the file represented by pathPtr exists, the Tcl_FSStatProc returns 0 and the stat
structure is filled with data. Otherwise, -1 is returned, and no stat info is given.
ACCESSPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSAccess call. Must be implemented for any reasonable
filesystem, since many Tcl level commands depend crucially upon it (e.g. file exists, file
readable).
typedef int Tcl_FSAccessProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
int mode);
The Tcl_FSAccessProc checks whether the process would be allowed to read, write or test
for existence of the file (or other filesystem object) whose name is in pathPtr. If the
pathname refers to a symbolic link, then the permissions of the file referred by this
symbolic link should be tested.
On success (all requested permissions granted), zero is returned. On error (at least one
bit in mode asked for a permission that is denied, or some other error occurred), -1 is
returned.
OPENFILECHANNELPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel call. Must be implemented for any reasonable
filesystem, since any operations which require open or accessing a file's contents will
use it (e.g. open, encoding, and many Tk commands).
typedef Tcl_Channel Tcl_FSOpenFileChannelProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
int mode,
int permissions);
The Tcl_FSOpenFileChannelProc opens a file specified by pathPtr and returns a channel
handle that can be used to perform input and output on the file. This API is modeled
after the fopen procedure of the Unix standard I/O library. The syntax and meaning of all
arguments is similar to those given in the Tcl open command when opening a file, where the
mode argument is a combination of the POSIX flags O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, etc. If an error
occurs while opening the channel, the Tcl_FSOpenFileChannelProc returns NULL and records a
POSIX error code that can be retrieved with Tcl_GetErrno. In addition, if interp is non-
NULL, the Tcl_FSOpenFileChannelProc leaves an error message in interp's result after any
error.
The newly created channel must not registered in the supplied interpreter; that task is up
to the caller of Tcl_FSOpenFileChannel (if necessary). If one of the standard channels,
stdin, stdout or stderr was previously closed, the act of creating the new channel also
assigns it as a replacement for the standard channel.
MATCHINDIRECTORYPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSMatchInDirectory call. If not implemented, then glob and
recursive copy functionality will be lacking in the filesystem (and this may impact
commands like encoding names which use glob functionality internally).
typedef int Tcl_FSMatchInDirectoryProc(
Tcl_Interp* interp,
Tcl_Obj *resultPtr,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
const char *pattern,
Tcl_GlobTypeData *types);
The function should return all files or directories (or other filesystem objects) which
match the given pattern and accord with the types specification given. There are two ways
in which this function may be called. If pattern is NULL, then pathPtr is a full path
specification of a single file or directory which should be checked for existence and
correct type. Otherwise, pathPtr is a directory, the contents of which the function
should search for files or directories which have the correct type. In either case,
pathPtr can be assumed to be both non-NULL and non-empty. It is not currently documented
whether pathPtr will have a file separator at its end of not, so code should be flexible
to both possibilities.
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
matching process. Error messages are placed in interp, unless interp in NULL in which
case no error message need be generated; on a TCL_OK result, results should be added to
the resultPtr object given (which can be assumed to be a valid unshared Tcl list). The
matches added to resultPtr should include any path prefix given in pathPtr (this usually
means they will be absolute path specifications). Note that if no matches are found, that
simply leads to an empty result; errors are only signaled for actual file or filesystem
problems which may occur during the matching process.
The Tcl_GlobTypeData structure passed in the types parameter contains the following
fields:
typedef struct Tcl_GlobTypeData {
/* Corresponds to bcdpfls as in 'find -t' */
int type;
/* Corresponds to file permissions */
int perm;
/* Acceptable mac type */
Tcl_Obj *macType;
/* Acceptable mac creator */
Tcl_Obj *macCreator;
} Tcl_GlobTypeData;
There are two specific cases which it is important to handle correctly, both when types is
non-NULL. The two cases are when types->types & TCL_GLOB_TYPE_DIR or types->types &
TCL_GLOB_TYPE_MOUNT are true (and in particular when the other flags are false). In the
first of these cases, the function must list the contained directories. Tcl uses this to
implement recursive globbing, so it is critical that filesystems implement directory
matching correctly. In the second of these cases, with TCL_GLOB_TYPE_MOUNT, the
filesystem must list the mount points which lie within the given pathPtr (and in this
case, pathPtr need not lie within the same filesystem - different to all other cases in
which this function is called). Support for this is critical if Tcl is to have seamless
transitions between from one filesystem to another.
UTIMEPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSUtime call. Required to allow setting (not reading) of times
with file mtime, file atime and the open-r/open-w/fcopy implementation of file copy.
typedef int Tcl_FSUtimeProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
struct utimbuf *tval);
The access and modification times of the file specified by pathPtr should be changed to
the values given in the tval structure.
The return value should be 0 on success and -1 on an error, as with the system utime.
LINKPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSLink call. Should be implemented only if the filesystem
supports links, and may otherwise be NULL.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSLinkProc(
Tcl_Obj *linkNamePtr,
Tcl_Obj *toPtr,
int linkAction);
If toPtr is NULL, the function is being asked to read the contents of a link. The result
is a Tcl_Obj specifying the contents of the link given by linkNamePtr, or NULL if the link
could not be read. The result is owned by the caller (and should therefore have its ref
count incremented before being returned). Any callers should call Tcl_DecrRefCount on
this result when it is no longer needed. If toPtr is not NULL, the function should
attempt to create a link. The result in this case should be toPtr if the link was
successful and NULL otherwise. In this case the result is not owned by the caller (i.e.
no ref count manipulation on either end is needed). See the documentation for Tcl_FSLink
for the correct interpretation of the linkAction flags.
LISTVOLUMESPROC
Function to list any filesystem volumes added by this filesystem. Should be implemented
only if the filesystem adds volumes at the head of the filesystem, so that they can be
returned by file volumes.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSListVolumesProc(void);
The result should be a list of volumes added by this filesystem, or NULL (or an empty
list) if no volumes are provided. The result object is considered to be owned by the
filesystem (not by Tcl's core), but should be given a refCount for Tcl. Tcl will use the
contents of the list and then decrement that refCount. This allows filesystems to choose
whether they actually want to retain a “master list” of volumes or not (if not, they
generate the list on the fly and pass it to Tcl with a refCount of 1 and then forget about
the list, if yes, then they simply increment the refCount of their master list and pass it
to Tcl which will copy the contents and then decrement the count back to where it was).
Therefore, Tcl considers return values from this proc to be read-only.
FILEATTRSTRINGSPROC
Function to list all attribute strings which are valid for this filesystem. If not
implemented the filesystem will not support the file attributes command. This allows
arbitrary additional information to be attached to files in the filesystem. If it is not
implemented, there is no need to implement the get and set methods.
typedef const char** Tcl_FSFileAttrStringsProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_Obj** objPtrRef);
The called function may either return an array of strings, or may instead return NULL and
place a Tcl list into the given objPtrRef. Tcl will take that list and first increment
its reference count before using it. On completion of that use, Tcl will decrement its
reference count. Hence if the list should be disposed of by Tcl when done, it should have
a reference count of zero, and if the list should not be disposed of, the filesystem
should ensure it returns an object with a reference count of at least one.
FILEATTRSGETPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSFileAttrsGet call, used by file attributes.
typedef int Tcl_FSFileAttrsGetProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp,
int index,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_Obj **objPtrRef);
Returns a standard Tcl return code. The attribute value retrieved, which corresponds to
the index'th element in the list returned by the Tcl_FSFileAttrStringsProc, is a Tcl_Obj
placed in objPtrRef (if TCL_OK was returned) and is likely to have a reference count of
zero. Either way we must either store it somewhere (e.g. the Tcl result), or Incr/Decr
its reference count to ensure it is properly freed.
FILEATTRSSETPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSFileAttrsSet call, used by file attributes. If the filesystem
is read-only, there is no need to implement this.
typedef int Tcl_FSFileAttrsSetProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp,
int index,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_Obj *objPtr);
The attribute value of the index'th element in the list returned by the
Tcl_FSFileAttrStringsProc should be set to the objPtr given.
CREATEDIRECTORYPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSCreateDirectory call. Should be implemented unless the FS is
read-only.
typedef int Tcl_FSCreateDirectoryProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
process. If successful, a new directory should have been added to the filesystem in the
location specified by pathPtr.
REMOVEDIRECTORYPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSRemoveDirectory call. Should be implemented unless the FS is
read-only.
typedef int Tcl_FSRemoveDirectoryProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
int recursive,
Tcl_Obj **errorPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
process. If successful, the directory specified by pathPtr should have been removed from
the filesystem. If the recursive flag is given, then a non-empty directory should be
deleted without error. If this flag is not given, then and the directory is non-empty a
POSIX “EEXIST” error should be signaled. If an error does occur, the name of the file or
directory which caused the error should be placed in errorPtr.
DELETEFILEPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSDeleteFile call. Should be implemented unless the FS is read-
only.
typedef int Tcl_FSDeleteFileProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
process. If successful, the file specified by pathPtr should have been removed from the
filesystem. Note that, if the filesystem supports symbolic links, Tcl will always call
this function and not Tcl_FSRemoveDirectoryProc when needed to delete them (even if they
are symbolic links to directories).
FILESYSTEM EFFICIENCY
These functions need not be implemented for a particular filesystem because the core has a
fallback implementation available. See each individual description for the consequences of
leaving the field NULL.
LSTATPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSLstat call. If not implemented, Tcl will attempt to use the
statProc defined above instead. Therefore it need only be implemented if a filesystem can
differentiate between stat and lstat calls.
typedef int Tcl_FSLstatProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_StatBuf *statPtr);
The behavior of this function is very similar to that of the Tcl_FSStatProc defined above,
except that if it is applied to a symbolic link, it returns information about the link,
not about the target file.
COPYFILEPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSCopyFile call. If not implemented Tcl will fall back on open-
r, open-w and fcopy as a copying mechanism. Therefore it need only be implemented if the
filesystem can perform that action more efficiently.
typedef int Tcl_FSCopyFileProc(
Tcl_Obj *srcPathPtr,
Tcl_Obj *destPathPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
copying process. Note that, destPathPtr is the name of the file which should become the
copy of srcPathPtr. It is never the name of a directory into which srcPathPtr could be
copied (i.e. the function is much simpler than the Tcl level file copy subcommand). Note
that, if the filesystem supports symbolic links, Tcl will always call this function and
not copyDirectoryProc when needed to copy them (even if they are symbolic links to
directories). Finally, if the filesystem determines it cannot support the file copy
action, calling Tcl_SetErrno(EXDEV) and returning a non-TCL_OK result will tell Tcl to use
its standard fallback mechanisms.
RENAMEFILEPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSRenameFile call. If not implemented, Tcl will fall back on a
copy and delete mechanism. Therefore it need only be implemented if the filesystem can
perform that action more efficiently.
typedef int Tcl_FSRenameFileProc(
Tcl_Obj *srcPathPtr,
Tcl_Obj *destPathPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
renaming process. If the filesystem determines it cannot support the file rename action,
calling Tcl_SetErrno(EXDEV) and returning a non-TCL_OK result will tell Tcl to use its
standard fallback mechanisms.
COPYDIRECTORYPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSCopyDirectory call. If not implemented, Tcl will fall back on
a recursive file mkdir, file copy mechanism. Therefore it need only be implemented if the
filesystem can perform that action more efficiently.
typedef int Tcl_FSCopyDirectoryProc(
Tcl_Obj *srcPathPtr,
Tcl_Obj *destPathPtr,
Tcl_Obj **errorPtr);
The return value is a standard Tcl result indicating whether an error occurred in the
copying process. If an error does occur, the name of the file or directory which caused
the error should be placed in errorPtr. Note that, destPathPtr is the name of the
directory-name which should become the mirror-image of srcPathPtr. It is not the name of a
directory into which srcPathPtr should be copied (i.e. the function is much simpler than
the Tcl level file copy subcommand). Finally, if the filesystem determines it cannot
support the directory copy action, calling Tcl_SetErrno(EXDEV) and returning a non-TCL_OK
result will tell Tcl to use its standard fallback mechanisms.
LOADFILEPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSLoadFile call. If not implemented, Tcl will fall back on a
copy to native-temp followed by a Tcl_FSLoadFile on that temporary copy. Therefore it
need only be implemented if the filesystem can load code directly, or it can be
implemented simply to return TCL_ERROR to disable load functionality in this filesystem
entirely.
typedef int Tcl_FSLoadFileProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp,
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr,
Tcl_LoadHandle *handlePtr,
Tcl_FSUnloadFileProc *unloadProcPtr);
Returns a standard Tcl completion code. If an error occurs, an error message is left in
the interp's result. The function dynamically loads a binary code file into memory. On a
successful load, the handlePtr should be filled with a token for the dynamically loaded
file, and the unloadProcPtr should be filled in with the address of a procedure. The
unload procedure will be called with the given Tcl_LoadHandle as its only parameter when
Tcl needs to unload the file. For example, for the native filesystem, the Tcl_LoadHandle
returned is currently a token which can be used in the private TclpFindSymbol to access
functions in the new code. Each filesystem is free to define the Tcl_LoadHandle as it
requires. Finally, if the filesystem determines it cannot support the file load action,
calling Tcl_SetErrno(EXDEV) and returning a non-TCL_OK result will tell Tcl to use its
standard fallback mechanisms.
UNLOADFILEPROC
Function to unload a previously successfully loaded file. If load was implemented, then
this should also be implemented, if there is any cleanup action required.
typedef void Tcl_FSUnloadFileProc(
Tcl_LoadHandle loadHandle);
GETCWDPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSGetCwd call. Most filesystems need not implement this. It
will usually only be called once, if getcwd is called before chdir. May be NULL.
typedef Tcl_Obj* Tcl_FSGetCwdProc(
Tcl_Interp *interp);
If the filesystem supports a native notion of a current working directory (which might
perhaps change independent of Tcl), this function should return that cwd as the result, or
NULL if the current directory could not be determined (e.g. the user does not have
appropriate permissions on the cwd directory). If NULL is returned, an error message is
left in the interp's result.
CHDIRPROC
Function to process a Tcl_FSChdir call. If filesystems do not implement this, it will be
emulated by a series of directory access checks. Otherwise, virtual filesystems which do
implement it need only respond with a positive return result if the pathPtr is a valid,
accessible directory in their filesystem. They need not remember the result, since that
will be automatically remembered for use by Tcl_FSGetCwd. Real filesystems should carry
out the correct action (i.e. call the correct system chdir API).
typedef int Tcl_FSChdirProc(
Tcl_Obj *pathPtr);
The Tcl_FSChdirProc changes the applications current working directory to the value
specified in pathPtr. The function returns -1 on error or 0 on success.
SEE ALSO
cd(3tcl), file(3tcl), load(3tcl), open(3tcl), pwd(3tcl), unload(3tcl)
KEYWORDS
stat, access, filesystem, vfs, virtual