On 4 December 2017 at 08:25, Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@cs.otago.ac.nz> wrote:

Ben Coman <btc@openinworld.com> wrote:

While 'canonicalize' obviously fits, it seems a bit exotic and a tongue
twist at five syllables.
I wonder if 'flatten' might also be suitable.�� Is there some concept this
wouldn't cover?

There are two distinct issues.
(1) Can this file name be put into a form that would have the
�� same reference as the original whatever the state of the
�� file system?�� (That is, whatever the same of the file
�� system, the original name and the new form will reference
�� to the same thing or neither will refer to anything, as
�� long as I don't change directory.)

�� For this, it _is_ safe to collapse // to / (except at the
�� beginning) and to elide "." entries, but because of
�� symbolic links it is *not* safe to elide ".." entries.

(2) Give me an absolute path name that does not contain any
�� symbolic links and will refer to the same file as long
�� as no directories along the way are renamed or deleted.

Thanks for you input.�� Thats a nice framework to consider this.

Someone else will have to advise the intent of the method.

��

There is no POSIX function to do (1).
The POSIX function that does (2) is realpath(2).
If the Smalltalk method is intended to have the same semantics
as the realpath() function, it should have the same name,
possibly spelled #realPath.

btw, my personal preference where we echo another api is to use identical capitalization.��

I believe this reduces friction transferring knowledge between domains.

Lucky for me Pharo at least partially follows that convention�� e.g. `basename`...

https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/blob/development/src/FileSystem-Core/FileSystemDirectoryEntry.class.st#L75

��cheers -ben

There is a Solaris function called resolvepath() which is subtly
different from realpath() and not generally available.