pathname2

Description

A drop-in replacement for the current Pathname class.

Prerequisites

• facade
• ffi (Windows only)
• test-unit (testing only)

Installation

gem install pathname2

Synopsis

require 'pathname2'

# Unix
path1 = Pathname.new("/foo/bar/baz")
path2 = Pathname.new("../zap")

path1 + path2 # "/foo/bar/zap"
path1 / path2 # "/foo/bar/zap" (same as +)
path1.exists? # Does this path exist?
path1.dirname # "/foo/bar"
path1.to_a    # ['foo','bar','baz']

# Windows
path1 = Pathname.new("C:/foo/bar/baz")
path2 = Pathname.new("../zap")

path1 + path2 # "C:\\foo\\bar\\zap"
path1.root    # "C:\\"
path1.to_a    # ['C:','foo','bar','baz']

Windows Notes

All forward slashes are converted to backslashes for Pathname objects.

Differences between Unix and Windows

If your pathname consists solely of ".", or "..", the return value for Pathname#clean will be different. On Win32, "\" is returned, while on Unix "." is returned. I consider this an extreme edge case and will not worry myself with it.

Differences between Pathname in the standard library and this version

• It is a subclass of String (and thus, mixes in Enumerable).
• It has sensical to_a and root instance methods.
• It works on Windows and Unix. The current implementation does not work with Windows path names very well, and not at all when it comes to UNC paths.
• The Pathname#cleanpath method works differently - it always returns a canonical pathname. In addition, there is no special consideration for symlinks (yet), though I'm not sure it warrants it.
• The Pathname#+ method auto cleans.
• It uses a facade for all File and Dir methods, as well as most FileUtils methods.
• Pathname#clean works slightly differently. In the stdlib version, Pathname#clean("../a") returns "../a". In this version, it returns "a". This affects other methods, such as Pathname#relative_path_from.
• Accepts file urls and converts them to paths automatically, e.g. file:///foo%20bar/baz becomes '/foo/bar/baz'.
• Adds a Kernel level pn method as a shortcut.
• Allows you to add paths together with the '/' operator.

Method Priority

Because there is some overlap in method names between File, Dir, and FileUtils, the priority is as follows:

• File
• Dir
• FileUtils

In other words, whichever of these defines a given method first is the method that is used by the pathname2 library.

Known Issues

On MS Windows, some methods may not work on pathnames greater than 260 characters because of internal function limitations.

Any issues you find should be reported on the project page at https://github.com/djberg96/pathname2

Future Plans

None at this time. Suggestions welcome.

License

Apache-2.0

Copyright

(C) 2003-2021 Daniel J. Berger All rights reserved.

Warranty

This library is provided "as is" and without any express or implied warranties, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

Author

Daniel J. Berger