[ecf-dev] Files

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ECF dev'ers:

I'm beginning to think about an ECF file transfer API, and have a 
question:  do each of you think that such an API should 'look' like 
accessing the local file system (but be through some file access 
protocol).  e.g.  What if I could do something like this:

// Make container instance and connect
IContainer container = 
ContainerFactory.makeContainer("ftpfilesystemcontainer");
container.connect(IDFactory.makeID(container.getConnectNamespace(),"ftp://slewis@localhost";),password);

// get IFileSystemContainer adapter
IFileSystemContainer fscont = (IFileSystemContainer) 
rawcontainer.getAdapter(IFileSystemContainer.class);
// get a file handle for a particular file I'm looking for (or 
navigate/query directories, etc)
IFile aFile = fscont.getFileForLocation("path/to/file/plus/name");
// get contents of file
if (aFile != null) {
   InputStream contents = aFile.getContents();
   // read from stream and do whatever with it...e.g. save, etc
}

// the underlying provider implementation would implement this in the 
protocol-specific way...e.g. read stream with ftp get, etc

What do you think of this 'style' of implementing file transfer?  It 
sort of makes the ECF container into a virtual file system...and it 
leverages off of the existing org.eclipse.core.resources.* semantics 
(and implementation I expect).  One problem, though, is that the 
aFile.getContents() call would necessarily be blocking, and we may want 
to provide an IFile adapter that allows for asynchronous retrieval of 
contents with notification.

Let me know what you think.

Scott