vfsDescribe

function

Library: File system utilities (OMVFS legacy)
Include: omvfs.xin

Declaration

define external function vfsDescribe
       value       stream  path
  into modifiable  stream  attributes

or

define external function vfsDescribe
       value       stream  filename-URL
    on value       vfsDir  dir
  into modifiable  stream  attributes

Argument definitions

path: is the file to describe expressed in local file system format.

filename-URL: is the name of the file to describe expressed as a relative URL using the specified vfsDir object as its base.

dir: is a vfsDir object created using either vfsConnect or vfsConnectDir.

attributes: is the returned shelf of description items.

Purpose

Use vfsDescribe to obtain a description of a file or a directory.

Requirements

You must include the following line at the beginning of your OmniMark program:

  include "omvfs.xin"

path must:

exist (else external exception VFS306)
be a file or a directory
be expressed in local file system format as either
- an absolute path, or
- a path relative to the current working directory for the local file system

filename-URL must:

exist (else external exception VFS306)
be a file or a directory
be expressed as a relative URL based on the current working directory fordir (else external exception VFS105)

The vfsDir object dir must:

represent an existing connection made using vfsConnect or vfsConnectDir (else external exception VFS100)
represent a connection made using the File scheme (else external exception VFS001)

Usage Notes

The attributes shelf returned by this function contains the following keyed items.

"name" (fully qualified file or directory name)
"size" (file size in bytes)
"atime"" (last accessed time in OmniMark date format)
"mtime" (last modified time in OmniMark date format)
"ctime" (last status change time in OmniMark date format)
"isdir" (is this a directory or a file?)
"permissions" (integer representation of file/dir permissions)
"owner" (username of owner)
"group" (group of file/dir)

If the drive containing the file or directory being described is a read-only drive (for example, a CD-ROM), the atime may be zero.

The attributes shelf is initially cleared of all contents.

If a particular attribute item is not supported by a virtual file system protocol , it is returned as an empty string.

External exception VFS300 is thrown for any general OS operation failure. The text accompanying the exception will contain details on the reason for the failure.

External exception VFS111 is thrown if an URL supplied as a parameter to this function contains invalid encoding.

External exception VFS004 is thrown if the URL exceeds system length limits.

For complete details on absolute URLs and valid encoding, see Internet Standards RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators.

For complete details on relative URLs, see Internet Standards RFC 1808: Relative Uniform Resource Locators.

Example

Obtaining the size of a file

  include "omvfs.xin"
  
  process
    local stream attrs variable
   	 .
    vfsDescribe "/programs/myscript.xom"
    	into attrs
    output attrs {"size"} || "%n"

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