1. A method for accessing and manipulating file specifications in a cross-platform development environment, comprising: configuring an application development environment on a computer system to instantiate a magic class file string object when a bit string of a first encoding is received, 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 bit string of 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.