Relative or absolute milkman

Rather contrary to current trends, we've just started taking regular deliveries of milk (+ bread + eggs) at our training centre from the local milkman. As we grow busier, it's more effective to have someone deliver to us as part of his round rather than having to make a special trip out. And our "mint on the pillow" approach to training means we really want to provide real milk rather than powder for the real coffee.

Monday's delivery - ace. Fine. AOK. A little bit of a stocking up order for the start of (another) busy week. For this morning, we asked for 5 pints of semi-skimmed milk. Sure - we got them. And a pint of Channel Island. And a pint of full fat. And bread. And eggs ...

At first thought - had our instructions been ignored? No - it turns out that our Milkman took our instruction as a relative path (i.e. changes from what we had on Monday) rather than an absolute path. Perhaps we should have written C:\ or / on the front of the order?

Why is this relevant to Horse's Mouth? Because so often people write their programs using a relative path when they would be better using an absolute, or vice versa, and it's a reminder worth making. Just this morning, I answered a question on Opentalk where my writer was having problems, I suspect, because of a changed current directory and a relative path.

When we look at file handling in Perl (or take a second or even a third look) - or when we get involved with file handling in PHP or Python or our other languages, we always try to stress careful file name selection in order to ensure that the user's script works correctly no matter what their current directory. I think I'll start telling my "milkman story" to help people appreciate the importance.
(written 2004-11-10 08:15:14)

Associated topics are indexed under

H109 - PHP - Input / Output
P207 - Perl - File Handling
Y110 - Python - File Handling

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History around you
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Relative or absolute milkman
A Parallel for Perl 6
Avoid the wheel being re-invented by using Perl modules
Training notes available under Open Distribution license
Friday, busy week!
URLs - a service and not a hurdle

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