GPath

GPath is a Python package that provides a robust, generalised abstract file path that allows path manipulations independent from the local environment, maximising cross-platform compatibility.

Install

pip install generic-path

Basic examples

Import GPath:

from gpath import GPath

Create a GPath object and manipulate it:

g = GPath("/usr/bin")

common = GPath.find_common(g, "/usr/local/bin")  # GPath("/usr")
relpath = g.relpath_from("/usr/local/bin")       # GPath("../../bin")
joined = GPath.join("/usr/local/bin", relpath)   # GPath("/usr/bin")
assert g == joined

For function arguments, strings or os.PathLike objects can be used interchangeably with GPaths.

Binary operations are also supported:

g1 = GPath("C:/Windows/System32")
g2 = GPath("../SysWOW64/drivers")

added = g1 + g2      # GPath("C:/Windows/SysWOW64/drivers")
subtracted = g1 - 1  # GPath("C:/Windows")

# Shift the imaginary current working directory in relative paths
shifted_right = g2 >> 1  # GPath("../../SysWOW64/drivers")
shifted_left = g2 << 1   # GPath("SysWOW64/drivers")

The GPath.partition() method is useful when dealing with paths from various different sources:

partitions = GPath.partition("/usr/bin", "/usr/local/bin", "../../doc", "C:/Windows", "C:/Program Files")

assert partitions == {
	GPath("/usr")      : [GPath("bin"), GPath("local/bin")],
	GPath("../../doc") : [GPath("")],
	GPath("C:/")       : [GPath("Windows"), GPath("Program Files")],
}

Issues

Found a bug? Please report an issue, or, better yet, contribute a bugfix.

Compatibility

The default GPath() interface supports the vast majority of valid file paths on Windows, Linux and macOS (and other POSIX-like operating systems), with some limited caveats.

Linux, macOS and POSIX

If using GPath(),

any backslashes \ (after parsing escape sequences) in the path will be treated as path separators
if the second character of the path is a colon x:, the first character x will be treated as a drive letter

These issues can be avoided by using GPath.from_posix() instead. This will cause all \ and : to be treated as normal characters in file names.

Windows

trailing dots . and spaces will not be stripped
reserved MS-DOS device names (such as AUX, CLOCK$, COM0 through COM9, CON, LPT0 through LPT9, NUL, PRN) will be treated as normal file names