[equinox-dev] Clarification on behavior of Bundle.getEntryPaths

[Thomas Watson <tjwatson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

If you use the method org.osgi.framework#Bundle.getEntryPaths
then read on ...

The OSGi R4.1 release (which is being
implemented in Europa) has made a clarification on the behavior of Bundle.getEntryPaths.
 The javadoc for the method org.osgi.framework.Bundle#getEntryPaths
did not make it clear whether the String paths returned had leading '/'
character or not.  The following clarification has been made ...

The returned paths are all relative
to the root of this bundle and must not begin with "/".

Unfortunately Equinox had a bug for
directory (exploded) bundles where a leading '/' character was included
in the results if the client used a path argument that contained a leading
'/'.  For jar'ed bundles Equinox would always ensure the returned
paths did not have a leading '/' character.  This was inconsistent
behavior.  Directory bundles have now been fixed to be consistent
with jar'ed bundles.  See https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=174101
for more information.

Some clients may have a dependency on
the old behavior for directory bundles.  If you use the method Bundle#getEntryPaths
then please ensure that you can handle return paths that do not begin with
a '/' character.  In reality this is a bug in the client code because
it would have failed for jar'ed bundles

Tom