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