If I understand right, I think those are supposed to be errors still. The documentation for `expand-user-path` says "In addition, on Unix and Mac OS, a leading ~ is treated as user’s home directory and expanded[...]" but it doesn't say there's any corresponding behavior on Windows.
Ah, interesting. That's a good point that it's Unix/MacOS-specific. My hope was that it should make Arc interpret paths the same way the default shell on the system does. On Linux, ~/ is the home directory of the current user, so it makes sense that Anarki would work that way on Linux. But Windows doesn't work that way, so it makes sense Anarki wouldn't either.
I don't know of any similar path tricks on Windows, But, if this change hasn't broken anything on Windows, I would be satisfied with that. Can you verify it still works to open an existing file? Are there any other special ways to refer to files or directories on Windows?
"On Linux, ~/ is the home directory of the current user, so it makes sense that Anarki would work that way on Linux. But Windows doesn't work that way, so it makes sense Anarki wouldn't either."
Yeah, I don't know much about what a Windows user would expect ~ to do. I would say `expand-user-path` leaving ~ alone on Windows is probably as good a behavior as any. It coincides with Command Prompt, where ~ just refers to a file or folder named "~". In PowerShell, ~ seems to be expanded to C:\Users\[username]\ somehow, so there's potentially an alternative design there.
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"I don't know of any similar path tricks on Windows, But, if this change hasn't broken anything on Windows, I would be satisfied with that. Can you verify it still works to open an existing file?"
On Windows 10 64-bit with Racket 8.1, I've at least run the tests.arc unit tests, the unit-test.arc/tests.arc unit tests, and build-web-help.arc, and they seem to work.
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"Are there any other special ways to refer to files or directories on Windows?"
I hardly know where to begin learning about and testing those features, and the documentation makes it look like Racket has explored hat rabbit hole pretty thoroughly already, so I'm inclined to suggest we just piggyback on Racket's work here.
Thanks for checking in. The dates of the files in the directories is 2018. I downloaded recent version and gave it a spin: It took about a minute to start up and then I ran (app-start "news") and it started the news app.
I downloaded and installed racket as described on arc installation page, and I got DrRacket version 8.0. The DrRacket window says: "Welcome to DrRacket, version 8.0 [cs].
Language: No language chosen; memory limit: 128 MB.
DrRacket cannot process programs until you choose a programming language.
Either select the “Choose Language…” item in the “Language” menu, or get guidance.
>
I've tried to type racket -f as.scm, but it doesn't work. I've type the same instruction in my MacBook Terminal, it doesn't work either. I don't know what to do next. Have I got the wrong racket?
Thanks, jsgrahamus, for your reply :)
The "racket -f as.scm" is supposed to be done in your terminal, you're right! DrRacket is a different thing that is very cool, but not the tool to run Arc with.
When you type it in your terminal, what does it say? If it says something like "racket not found", try downloading the racket installer from https://download.racket-lang.org/.
If it installs correctly, you should be able to type "racket" (without quotes) in your terminal, and get a message "Welcome to Racket 8.0". To quit, press Ctrl-D, or type (exit) with the parentheses, then hit enter.
If that works, you should be able to run "racket -f as.scm".
Thank you so much, zck :)
I've used a combination of your helpful suggestions, stack overflow, and cd command to get to the right folder, and now it works. I got the arc command prompt (arc>) in my terminal now. I will take my time to explore the tutorial on Arc.
I feel good that this community is really helpful. Thanks everyone!
