Cross Platform File Paths

Jun 6, 2017 · 170 words · 1 minute read

#cross #platform #file #filepath #fromslash #linux #nix #os #path #separator #windows

Unlike with URLs which have a standardised format (they use forward-slashes to separate folders), file path separators will differ between operating systems. This is mainly a historic issue, as it’s almost inconceivable to change them at this stage. This means Windows uses back-slashes and *nix systems use forward slashes.

This is a pain however when writing cross platform software because if you know a file exists in a folder, and want to get it’s contents, you will have to use it’s folder name, a slash separator and the file name. We can tackle this problem in a number of ways. Here are two quick ones:

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package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"path/filepath"
)

func main() {

	// Make a cross-platform file
	// unix='dir/example' windows='dir\example'

	// Option 1
	examplePath1 := "dir" + string(os.PathSeparator) + "example"
	fmt.Println("PathSeparator: " + examplePath1)

	// Option 2
	examplePath2 := filepath.FromSlash("dir/example")
	fmt.Println("FromSlash: " + examplePath2)
}

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Author: Edd Turtle

Edd is the Lead Developer at Hoowla, a prop-tech startup, where he spends much of his time working on production-ready Go and PHP code. He loves coding, but also enjoys cycling and camping in his spare time.

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