Re: fileutils: inconsistent behaviour stripping / from end of filenames

[Jim Meyering]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> This really does call for an interpretation request, which I'll write.

Thanks!

> In the meantime, I think that system utilities should leave the
> trailing slashes alone.  E.g. the shell command `rmdir foo/' should
> invoke the system call `rmdir("foo/")'; it should not strip the
> trailing slash.
>
> Once we know what rmdir("foo/") is supposed to do, perhaps we should
> write a replacement that works the "right" way on platforms where it
> works the "wrong" way.  That will let fileutils be POSIX-compliant
> even on hosts where the underlying system calls are not POSIX-compliant.

I agree.

mkdir, too.  For example, lib/lstat.c and lib/rename.c already
have code work-around vagaries of some systems wrt trailing slashes.