1. A method for accessing and manipulating file specifications in a cross-platform development environment, comprising: in an application development environment on a computer system, instantiating a magic class file string object to represent a bit string; determining a first encoding of a file name and file path associated with the magic class file string object, wherein the magic class file string object performs the determining, wherein the magic class file string object contains pieces of code programmed to make one or more automatic determinations at compile time, wherein the bit string represents a file specification of a file, wherein the file contains application code, and wherein the application code comprises a function call; automatically determining a target operating system that is being called by the function call, wherein the magic class file string object performs the automatic determining; automatically transcoding the file name and file path from the first encoding into a second encoding of the target operating system, wherein the magic class file string object performs the automatic transcoding; and automatically making a file system application program interface (API) call specific to the target operating system, wherein the magic class file string object performs the automatic API call and wherein the pieces of code comprise a set of conditional logic for determining which one or more file system specific API calls are to make.