2013-06-18 01:59:18 +00:00
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<HEAD><TITLE>APR Canonical Filenames</TITLE></HEAD>
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<BODY>
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<h1>APR Canonical Filename</h1>
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<h2>Requirements</h2>
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<p>APR porters need to address the underlying discrepancies between
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file systems. To achieve a reasonable degree of security, the
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program depending upon APR needs to know that two paths may be
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compared, and that a mismatch is guarenteed to reflect that the
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two paths do not return the same resource</p>.
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<p>The first discrepancy is in volume roots. Unix and pure deriviates
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have only one root path, "/". Win32 and OS2 share root paths of
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the form "D:/", D: is the volume designation. However, this can
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be specified as "//./D:/" as well, indicating D: volume of the
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'this' machine. Win32 and OS2 also may employ a UNC root path,
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of the form "//server/share/" where share is a share-point of the
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specified network server. Finally, NetWare root paths are of the
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form "server/volume:/", or the simpler "volume:/" syntax for 'this'
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machine. All these non-Unix file systems accept volume:path,
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without a slash following the colon, as a path relative to the
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current working directory, which APR will treat as ambigious, that
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is, neither an absolute nor a relative path per se.</p>
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<p>The second discrepancy is in the meaning of the 'this' directory.
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In general, 'this' must be eliminated from the path where it occurs.
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The syntax "path/./" and "path/" are both aliases to path. However,
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this isn't file system independent, since the double slash "//" has
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a special meaning on OS2 and Win32 at the start of the path name,
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and is invalid on those platforms before the "//server/share/" UNC
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root path is completed. Finally, as noted above, "//./volume/" is
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legal root syntax on WinNT, and perhaps others.</p>
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<p>The third discrepancy is in the context of the 'parent' directory.
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When "parent/path/.." occurs, the path must be unwound to "parent".
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It's also critical to simply truncate leading "/../" paths to "/",
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since the parent of the root is root. This gets tricky on the
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Win32 and OS2 platforms, since the ".." element is invalid before
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the "//server/share/" is complete, and the "//server/share/../"
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seqence is the complete UNC root "//server/share/". In relative
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paths, leading ".." elements are significant, until they are merged
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with an absolute path. The relative form must only retain the ".."
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segments as leading segments, to be resolved once merged to another
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relative or an absolute path.</p>
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<p>The fourth discrepancy occurs with acceptance of alternate character
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codes for the same element. Path seperators are not retained within
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the APR canonical forms. The OS filesystem and APR (slashed) forms
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can both be returned as strings, to be used in the proper context.
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Unix, Win32 and Netware all accept slashes and backslashes as the
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same path seperator symbol, although unix strictly accepts slashes.
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While the APR form of the name strictly uses slashes, always consider
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that there could be a platform that actually accepts slashes as a
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character within a segment name.</p>
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<p>The fifth and worst discrepancy plauges Win32, OS2, Netware, and some
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filesystems mounted in Unix. Case insensitivity can permit the same
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file to slip through in both it's proper case and alternate cases.
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Simply changing the case is insufficient for any character set beyond
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ASCII, since various dilectic forms of characters suffer from one to
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many or many to one translations. An example would be u-umlaut, which
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might be accepted as a single character u-umlaut, a two character
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sequence u and the zero-width umlaut, the upper case form of the same,
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or perhaps even a captial U alone. This can be handled in different
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ways depending on the purposes of the APR based program, but the one
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requirement is that the path must be absolute in order to resolve these
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ambiguities. Methods employed include comparison of device and inode
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file uniqifiers, which is a fairly fast operation, or quering the OS
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for the true form of the name, which can be much slower. Only the
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acknowledgement of the file names by the OS can validate the equality
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of two different cases of the same filename.</p>
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<p>The sixth discrepancy, illegal or insignificant characters, is especially
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significant in non-unix file systems. Trailing periods are accepted
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but never stored, therefore trailing periods must be ignored for any
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form of comparison. And all OS's have certain expectations of what
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characters are illegal (or undesireable due to confusion.)</p>
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<p>A final warning, canonical functions don't transform or resolve case
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or character ambiguity issues until they are resolved into an absolute
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path. The relative canonical path, while useful, while useful for URL
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or similar identifiers, cannot be used for testing or comparison of file
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system objects.</p>
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<hr>
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<h2>Canonical API</h2>
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Functions to manipulate the apr_canon_file_t (an opaque type) include:
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<ul>
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<li>Create canon_file_t (from char* path and canon_file_t parent path)
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<li>Merged canon_file_t (from path and parent, both canon_file_t)
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<li>Get char* path of all or some segments
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<li>Get path flags of IsRelative, IsVirtualRoot, and IsAbsolute
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<li>Compare two canon_file_t structures for file equality
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</ul>
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<p>The path is corrected to the file system case only if is in absolute
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form. The apr_canon_file_t should be preserved as long as possible and
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used as the parent to create child entries to reduce the number of expensive
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stat and case canonicalization calls to the OS.</p>
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<p>The comparison operation provides that the APR can postpone correction
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2014-05-27 07:00:33 +00:00
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of case by simply relying upon the device and inode for equivalence. The
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2013-06-18 01:59:18 +00:00
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stat implementation provides that two files are the same, while their
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2014-05-27 07:00:33 +00:00
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strings are not equivalent, and eliminates the need for the operating
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2013-06-18 01:59:18 +00:00
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system to return the proper form of the name.</p>
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<p>In any case, returning the char* path, with a flag to request the proper
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case, forces the OS calls to resolve the true names of each segment. Where
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there is a penality for this operation and the stat device and inode test
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is faster, case correction is postponed until the char* result is requested.
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On platforms that identify the inode, device, or proper name interchangably
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with no penalities, this may occur when the name is initially processed.</p>
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<hr>
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<h2>Unix Example</h2>
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<p>First the simplest case:</p>
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<pre>
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Parse Canonical Name
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accepts parent path as canonical_t
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this path as string
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Split this path Segments on '/'
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For each of this path Segments
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If first Segment
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If this Segment is Empty ([nothing]/)
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Append this Root Segment (don't merge)
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Continue to next Segment
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Else is relative
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Append parent Segments (to merge)
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Continue with this Segment
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If Segment is '.' or empty (2 slashes)
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Discard this Segment
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Continue with next Segment
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If Segment is '..'
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If no previous Segment or previous Segment is '..'
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Append this Segment
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Continue with next Segment
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If previous Segment and previous is not Root Segment
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Discard previous Segment
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Discard this Segment
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Continue with next Segment
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Append this Relative Segment
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Continue with next Segment
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</pre>
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</BODY>
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2014-05-27 07:00:33 +00:00
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</HTML>
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