Bob Alexander wrote:
> 
> On the topic of whether ".." and "." should be in our directory
> listings:
> 
> I don't think it really matters that those entries really exist in the
> OS directory structure. What matters is what is useful in a programming
> context. The ".." and "." entries are "bookkeeping" entries,
> implementation artifacts. How often when scanning a directory do you
> really want to see them? The directory contents are really the files and
> directories in them. The parent and self directory are not really
> "contents", even though technically they appear in the directory.
> 
> Note that the Unix "ls" command omits them by default.
> 
> Both Java and Python omit them from their directory listing methods.
> 
> It is a nuisance to almost always have to explicitly skip them when
> scanning a directory:
> 
>     for entry in Dir.entries("myDir")
>         next if ["..", "."].include?(entry)
>         ...
>     end
> 
> Can someone suggest an argument as to why having them in the listed
> entries is useful?
> 


I often use ls -al in the shell because I also need to see the 
permissions and/or owner of '.'
And it is useful in the shell to use '..' as a navigation tool.

But when I programmatically iterate over directory entries,
I don't care about '.' or '..' 

I use Dir["*"] to avoid them being included. 


Guy N. Hurst