Introduction

The path: module provides functions for manipulating and testing filesystem paths.

Function usages are given in the same format as in the reference doc for the builtin module.

Variables

$path:dev-null

OS-specific path to the “null” device (/dev/null on Unix and NUL on Windows).

$path:dev-tty

OS-specific path to the terminal device (/dev/tty on Unix and CON on Windows).

$path:list-separator

OS-specific path list separator. Colon (:) on Unix and semicolon (;) on Windows. This variable is read-only.

$path:separator

OS-specific path separator. Forward slash (/) on Unix and backslash (\) on Windows. This variable is read-only.

Functions

path:abs

path:abs $path

Outputs $path converted to an absolute path.

~> cd ~
~> path:abs bin
▶ /home/user/bin

path:base

path:base $path

Outputs the last element of $path. This is analogous to the POSIX basename command. See the Go documentation for more details.

~> path:base ~/bin
▶ bin

path:clean

path:clean $path

Outputs the shortest version of $path equivalent to $path by purely lexical processing. This is most useful for eliminating unnecessary relative path elements such as . and .. without asking the OS to evaluate the path name. See the Go documentation for more details.

~> path:clean ./../bin
▶ ../bin

path:dir

path:dir $path

Outputs all but the last element of $path, typically the path’s enclosing directory. See the Go documentation for more details. This is analogous to the POSIX dirname command.

~> path:dir /a/b/c/something
▶ /a/b/c

path:eval-symlinks

path:eval-symlinks $path

Outputs $path after resolving any symbolic links. If $path is relative the result will be relative to the current directory, unless one of the components is an absolute symbolic link. This function calls path:clean on the result before outputting it. This is analogous to the external realpath or readlink command found on many systems. See the Go documentation for more details.

~> mkdir bin
~> ln -s bin sbin
~> path:eval-symlinks ./sbin/a_command
▶ bin/a_command

path:ext

path:ext $path

Outputs the file name extension used by $path (including the separating period). If there is no extension the empty string is output. See the Go documentation for more details.

~> path:ext hello.elv
▶ .elv

path:is-abs

path:is-abs $path

Outputs $true if the path is an absolute path. Note that platforms like Windows have different rules than Unix like platforms for what constitutes an absolute path. See the Go documentation for more details.

~> path:is-abs hello.elv
▶ false
~> path:is-abs /hello.elv
▶ true

path:is-dir

path:is-dir &follow-symlink=$false $path

Outputs $true if the path resolves to a directory. If the final element of the path is a symlink, even if it points to a directory, it still outputs $false since a symlink is not a directory. Setting option &follow-symlink to true will cause the last element of the path, if it is a symlink, to be resolved before doing the test.

~> touch not-a-dir
~> path:is-dir not-a-dir
▶ false
~> path:is-dir /tmp
▶ true

See also path:is-regular.

path:is-regular

path:is-regular &follow-symlink=$false $path

Outputs $true if the path resolves to a regular file. If the final element of the path is a symlink, even if it points to a regular file, it still outputs $false since a symlink is not a regular file. Setting option &follow-symlink to true will cause the last element of the path, if it is a symlink, to be resolved before doing the test.

Note: This isn’t named is-file because a Unix file may be a “bag of bytes” or may be a named pipe, device special file (e.g. /dev/tty), etc.

~> touch not-a-dir
~> path:is-regular not-a-dir
▶ true
~> path:is-regular /tmp
▶ false

See also path:is-dir.

path:join

path:join $path-component...

Joins any number of path elements into a single path, separating them with an OS specific separator. Empty elements are ignored. The result is cleaned. However, if the argument list is empty or all its elements are empty, Join returns an empty string. On Windows, the result will only be a UNC path if the first non-empty element is a UNC path.

~> path:join home user bin
▶ home/user/bin
~> path:join $path:separator home user bin
▶ /home/user/bin

path:temp-dir

path:temp-dir &dir='' $pattern?

Creates a new directory and outputs its name.

The &dir option determines where the directory will be created; if it is an empty string (the default), a system-dependent directory suitable for storing temporary files will be used. The $pattern argument determines the name of the directory, where the last star will be replaced by a random string; it defaults to elvish-*.

It is the caller’s responsibility to remove the directory if it is intended to be temporary.

~> path:temp-dir
▶ /tmp/elvish-RANDOMSTR
~> path:temp-dir x-
▶ /tmp/x-RANDOMSTR
~> path:temp-dir 'x-*.y'
▶ /tmp/x-RANDOMSTR.y
~> path:temp-dir &dir=.
▶ elvish-RANDOMSTR
~> path:temp-dir &dir=/some/dir
▶ /some/dir/elvish-RANDOMSTR

path:temp-file

path:temp-file &dir='' $pattern?

Creates a new file and outputs a file object opened for reading and writing.

The &dir option determines where the file will be created; if it is an empty string (the default), a system-dependent directory suitable for storing temporary files will be used. The $pattern argument determines the name of the file, where the last star will be replaced by a random string; it defaults to elvish-*.

It is the caller’s responsibility to close the file with file:close. The caller should also remove the file if it is intended to be temporary (with rm $f[name]).

~> var f = (path:temp-file)
~> put $f[name]
▶ /tmp/elvish-RANDOMSTR
~> echo hello > $f
~> cat $f[name]
hello
~> var f = (path:temp-file x-)
~> put $f[name]
▶ /tmp/x-RANDOMSTR
~> var f = (path:temp-file 'x-*.y')
~> put $f[name]
▶ /tmp/x-RANDOMSTR.y
~> var f = (path:temp-file &dir=.)
~> put $f[name]
▶ elvish-RANDOMSTR
~> var f = (path:temp-file &dir=/some/dir)
~> put $f[name]
▶ /some/dir/elvish-RANDOMSTR