[Tutor] slashes in paths

[Dominik George]

Hi Jim,

> But oddly, it makes all slashes forward if I end the path with a
> forward slash, so it's not consistent with itself.

It is, in the sense that it preserves any form of seperator that is
already there. It just doesn't throw away what you want to be there:

 >>> import ntpath
 >>> ntpath.join("a", "b")
 'a\\b'
 >>> ntpath.join("a/", "b")
 'a/b'
 >>> ntpath.join("a/", "b", "c")
 'a/b\\c'
 >>> 

"Explicit is better than implicit", so if you explicitly require it to
use a certain seperator it uses it. If you don't, it implie the
OS-native seperator. Remember that Windows NT is alright with forward
slashes, even outside Python, so it is ok to preserve it if it is
already there.

(On a side note, I imported ntpath to force the NT pathname behaviour on
my Linux Python. os.path always matches the *path module for the current
OS, so there is no difference there.)

> BTW, is ending a path with a slash a Linux requirement, or just a
> convention, or a who-cares-either-way? I forget since I've been on
> windows a long time, and it accepts either method. I guess the best
> thing is to always end all paths with a forward slash, catching both
> OS's and being consistent.

It is a POSIX convention. I think a POSIX OS is allowed to rais ENOENT
if you leave the last slash out when referencing a directory, but most
shells and programs imply it.

-nik

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