[Python-Dev] Re: os.path.commonprefix breakage (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas@xs4all.net
Thu, 17 Aug 2000 09:09:42 +0200

On Thu, Aug 17, 2000 at 04:28:19PM +1200, Greg Ewing wrote:

given platform -- e.g Unix doesn't care whether there's a trailing slash on a pathname.

Bzzzt. This is unfortunately not true. Observe:

daemon2:/python > mkdir perl daemon2:/python > rm perl/ rm: perl/: is a directory daemon2:/python > rmdir perl/ rmdir: perl/: Is a directory daemon2:/python > rm -rf perl/ rm: perl/: Is a directory daemon2:~/python > su

rmdir perl/

rmdir: perl/: Is a directory

rm -rf perl/

rm: perl/: Is a directory

^D

daemon2:/python > rmdir perl daemon2:/python >

Note that the trailing slash is added by all tab-completing shells that I know. And the problem really is that trailing slash, I shit you not. Needless to say, every one of us ran into this at one time or another, and spent an hour figuring out why the rmdir wouldn't remove a directory.

Consequently, I'm all for removing trailing slashes, but not enough to break existing code. I wonder howmuch breakage there really is, though.

-- Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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