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List:       sylpheed
Subject:    [sylpheed:27076] Re: another question about program interface
From:       Stefaan A Eeckels <Stefaan.Eeckels () ecc ! lu>
Date:       2006-01-28 21:38:08
Message-ID: 20060128223808.2b36db5d.Stefaan.Eeckels () ecc ! lu
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On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 23:02:40 +0200
Cristian Secară <orice@secarica.ro> wrote:

> Through the whole messages .po file list, there are sometimes
> references for "directories" and sometimes references for "folders".
> All I want to know is if there is any general rule or concept about
> when it's about a directory and when it's about folders, specifically
> in the UNIX world,

In the Unix world they've always been, and will always be,
"directories". Directories was the MS-DOS term, and earlier
versions of Windows continued to use this term, IIRC. Recently,
Microsoft has tried to dump "directory" in favour of "folder". Apple
has always used "folder", which might explain Microsoft's change of
terminology :-)

> In my opinion (it's just an opinion), a directory usually refers to a
> physical directory (on disk), whereas a folder usually refers to an
> object, with or without additional attributes (others than the
> standard read-only etc.), who may happen to be at a same time a
> physical directory on disk.

I think I understand what you're saying. It might be a good idea to use
"mail folder" when referring to a collection of related email messages,
because depending on the type of data store, "mail folders" are either
directories (MH) or files (mbox). 

Take care,

-- 
Stefaan
-- 
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh 

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