654797 - Clarify comment about MacOS in documentation for nsIURI::Clone

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

<dholbert> Is this actually true? --> "under MacOS, the spec of a file URL does not necessarily uniquely identify a file since two volumes could share the same name."
 (from http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/netwerk/base/public/nsIURI.idl?mark=198-200#196 )
<dholbert> (and if so, how do we know which file to load, given a file URI?)
<bz> dholbert: as of OSX, I believe this is no longer the case
<bholley> bz: ok, thanks
<bz> dholbert: but under Classic, it was

Assuming bz is correct on this no longer being an issue (CC'ing some mac folks to verify), we should probably clarify the comment in nsIURI.idl to indicate that this applies to *classic* Mac OS.

Also, I'm guessing(?) that this wants s/MacOS/Mac OS/ -- at least on Wikipedia*, it's always spelled with a space.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macos

Comment 1

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

> Assuming bz is correct on this no longer being an issue (CC'ing some
> mac folks to verify), we should probably clarify the comment in
> nsIURI.idl to indicate that this applies to *classic* Mac OS.

I think bz is almost certainly correct ... but I don't know for sure,
and don't know how to check.

I find that it landed as part of the patch for bug 124042:

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsview2.cgi?diff_mode=context&whitespace_mode=show&subdir=mozilla/netwerk/base/public&command=DIFF_FRAMESET&file=nsIURI.idl&rev1=1.24&rev2=1.25&root=/cvsroot

Also, it was included with the initial template that Darin Fisher
started from when writing his patch (from bug 124042 comment #0):

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=70883

So this comment is very old (it might predate Darin's patch, which is
itself from 2002-03-05, and therefore predates the release of OS X
10.2).  Mac OS was still very much alive when it was written, and OS X
was quite new -- which could explain why the comment didn't mention
Mac OS specifically.

In any case, I can't imagine any BSD-compatible file system would let
you create two identical filespecs.

Comment 2

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

> Also, I'm guessing(?) that this wants s/MacOS/Mac OS/ -- at least on
> Wikipedia*, it's always spelled with a space.
>
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macos

Yes, I think "Mac OS" is the correct spelling.

But it's probably best just to drop the comment altogether -- to
prevent it causing more confusion when someone stumbles across it
again 10 years from now :-)

Comment 3

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

Oh and by the way, "Mac OS" just is "classic Mac OS".

"Mac OS X" != "Mac OS", just like JavaScript != Java :-)

Comment 4

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

> Oh and by the way, "Mac OS" just is "classic Mac OS".
>
> "Mac OS X" != "Mac OS", just like JavaScript != Java :-)

I suspect the Wikipedia article is wrong to consider "Mac OS X" a
subset of "Mac OS" -- at least I've never used the term "Mac OS" that
way.

Comment 5

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> But it's probably best just to drop the comment altogether

Sounds good to me.

(In reply to comment #3)
> Oh and by the way, "Mac OS" just is "classic Mac OS".

(I suspected that might be the case... still, I think most non-Mac-developer readers today would interpret "Mac OS" to refer to (or at least include) OS X, and would be confused as I was.)

Comment 6

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

> still, I think most non-Mac-developer readers today would interpret
> "Mac OS" to refer to (or at least include) OS X, and would be
> confused as I was

You're probably right -- especially considering that even the
Wikipedia article does this.

All the more reason to drop the comment.

Comment 7

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: fix: delete tangential/obsolete part of documentation

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Comment on attachment 533903 [details] [diff] [review]
fix: delete tangential/obsolete part of documentation

r=me

Comment 9

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f6fb5d419d79