std.path.getName(): Screwy by design?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public at kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> wrote in message 
news:ikis59$14ci$3 at digitalmars.com...
> On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:10:58 +0100, Jens Mueller wrote:
>>
>> I don't know whether this is useful but why not look at what is already
>> there. Linux has a command called basename. For removing the extension
>> it is a bit useless. Because you need to provide the extension as a
>> second argument in that case. But maybe it is like this for a good
>> reason. There is also dirname.
>
> I have used Linux's basename and dirname commands as the model for my
> versions.  basename takes a suffix argument because Linux formally
> doesn't have the notion of a file extension.  A dot is a part of the name
> just like any other character.
>

People don't always realize it, but Windows really is the same way. It's 
really only the user-level applications like Explorer that ever care about 
"extension", and even then the extension is always just "everything after 
the last dot in the filename". Anything beyond that is merely tradition and 
convention. The only real difference is that windows has no standard 
mechanism for looking at the content of the file to help determine its type.

Now, the Apple II's ProDOS and such, *those* had separate notions of 
filename and "extension" (not that it was called "extension" though).