Path - a Path manipulation library

Path is a library to manage paths.
It is similar to Pathname, but has some extra goodness.
The method names are intended to be short and explicit, and avoid too much duplication like having 'name' or 'path' in the method name.

I believe the object-oriented approach to manipulate paths is very elegant and useful.
Paths are naturally the subject of their methods and even if they are simple Strings behind, they carry way much more information and deserve a first-class status.

Also, using a path library like this avoid to remember in which class the functionality is implemented, everything is in one place (if not, please open an issue!).

Installation

gem install epath

API

See the Path class documentation for details.

All the useful methods of File (and so IO) and Dir should be included.
Most methods of FileUtils should be there too.

creation

Path.new('/usr/bin')
Path['/usr/bin']
Path('/usr/bin') # unless NO_EPATH_GLOBAL_FUNCTION is defined

Path.new('~myuser/path') # expanded if it begins with ~

# Separators are replaced by / on systems having File::ALT_SEPARATOR
Path.new('win\sepa\rator') # => #<Path win/sepa/rator>

Path.new('/usr', 'bin')
%w[foo bar].map(&Path) # => [Path('foo'), Path('bar')]

Path.file           # == Path(__FILE__).expand
Path.dir            # == Path(File.dirname(__FILE__)).expand
Path.relative(path) # == Path(File.expand_path("../#{path}", __FILE__))
Path.home or Path.~ # == Path(File.expand_path('~'))
Path.~(user)        # == Path(File.expand_path("~#{user}"))

temporary

Path.tmpfile
Path.tmpdir

aliases

  • expand => expand_path
  • relative_to => relative_path_from

parts

Path can split a path in two ways:

The first way is the one done by File methods (dirname, basename, extname).

The second is Path's own way in which the base is given without the extension and the extension is given without the leading dot.
The rationale behind this is to have a true three-components path, splitting on the / and the . (See this issue for details)

   dirname     basename
 ____________   ______
/            \ /      \
/some/path/dir/file.ext
\____________/ \__/ \_/
      dir      base ext

path = dirname / basename
path = dirname / basename(extname) extname
path = dir / base [. ext]
  • dirname: "/some/path/dir"
  • basename: "file.ext"
  • extname: ".ext"
  • dir: alias of dirname: "/some/paths/dir"
  • base: basename(extname), the basename without the extension: "file"
  • ext: extname without the leading dot: "ext"

join

  • join(*parts)
  • /: join paths (as Pathname#+)
Path('/usr')/'bin'

extensions

  • add_ext / add_extension
  • rm_ext / without_extension
  • sub_ext(new_ext) / replace_extension(new_ext)

glob

  • children: files under self, without . and ..
  • glob: relative glob to self, yield absolute paths

structure

  • parent: parent directory (don't use #dirname more than once, use #parent instead)
  • ascend, ancestors: self and all the parent directories
  • descend: in the reverse order
  • backfind: ascends the parents until it finds the given path
# Path.backfind is Path.here.backfind
Path.backfind('lib') # => Path's lib folder

# It accepts XPath-like context
Path.backfind('.[.git]') # => the root of this repository

IO

  • read
  • write(contents)
  • append(contents)

management

  • mkdir
  • mkdir_p
  • rm_rf

require

  • Path.require_tree: require all .rb files recursively (in alphabetic order)

relocate

from = Path('pictures')
to   = Path('output/public/thumbnails')
earth = Path('pictures/nature/earth.jpg')

earth.relocate(from, to, '.png') { |rel| "#{rel}-200" }
# => #<Path output/public/thumbnails/nature/earth-200.png>

Transition from String/Pathname

One aim of Path is to help the user make the transition coming from String (not using a path library), Pathname, or another library.

To this intend, Path + config allows to configure the behavior of Path#+.

Coming from String, one should use Path + :string, and run ruby with the verbose option (-w), which will show where + is used as String concatenation.

Coming from a path library using + as #join, one should just use the default (Path + :warning), which will show where + is used.

Status

This is still in the early development stage, you should expect many additions and some changes.

Author

Benoit Daloze - eregon

Contributors

Bernard Lambeau - blambeau
Ravil Bayramgalin - brainopia