On Mar 26, 2010, at 4:34, Mark Evenson wrote:
I've [committed to an initial design][1] for URLs to be used as Pathnames, which I am in the process of implementing. The primary use of this functionality will be to be able to eventually express OSGi bundles within ASDF system definitions.
Two general comments without having looked at the code or the mentioned paper:
* Make sure you're not assuming *too much* about URL syntax; stick to what's stated in the URI Generic Syntax RFC and/or particular scheme RFCs.
In particular, make sure you're correctly handling the 'reserved' characters and not making too many assumptions about what is equivalent, or about what cannot occur.
* On the other hand, it would seem natural that a pathname with, say, directory (:ABSOLUTE "qty" "1/2 lb") should become the URL whatever://.../qty/1%2F2%20lb/ i.e., the user should be able to ignore the encoding/syntax/ escaping issues of URLs when working with them in a data structure. But this may conflict with being able to handle the reserved characters unambiguously. The central question is "What does % mean in a PATHNAME-component string?". Make sure that the answer is consistent.