Re: Is there any api to convert Windows path to IFS path ?

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ali,

> Looking for an api to convert IFS path string from Windows style
> (\\myas400\QDLS\mdDir\myfile.txt) to IFS style (/myDir/myfile.txt).

There's no API that I know of.  However, you could do this:

   ifspath = %xlate('\': '/': windows_path);
   if (%subst(ifspath:1:2) = '//';
      ifspath = '/QNTC' + %subst(ifspath:2);
   endif;

This would convert \\myas400\QDLS\mdDir\myfile.txt into 
/QNTC/myas400/QDLS/mdDir/myfile.txt, thus making it a legal IFS path name.

From your example, however, it looks like you want to change the 
perspective of the path as well as just converting it's syntax.  In 
other words, you want the code to somehow convert a network path into a 
local path.  That's not so simple, and I don't see the value of doing 
so. There are all sorts of technical hurdles as well as security 
ramifications...

For example, the system would have to know whether the hostname listed 
is the local host's name, or not.  That'd mean you'd have to account for 
IP address, DNS lookups and NetBIOS lookups to see if it matched the 
current system.  Certainly doable, but it'd require a fair amount of code.

Once you recognized the system as the local system, you'd have to 
extract the share name, look in the NetServer configuration (There are 
APIs to return the configured shares in NetServer) and map the netserver 
share name to an IFS directory name.

Once you'd done that, you could access the directory directly -- but 
then what if the NetServer admin had set the share up as read only?  Or 
only readable to certain users?  Well, by accessing directly from the 
IFS, you'd slide right past those security options and get access 
anyway, since it's a local directory, not going through NetServer!

I suppose you could probably determine all of this information from APIs 
and handle it appropriately.  I guess I just don't see why it's worth 
the amount of work.  Why would you WANT your users to be able to specify 
the path name, as if they were on a completely different computer, and 
have the system automatically convert it?  Wouldn't that be confusing to 
the user?

But, sure I guess it's possible.