Resolving Relative File Paths

· Sep 3, 08:23 PM

The GetFolderItem function does not resolve relative paths; that is, paths like ../../tic/tac/toe . But it turns out that it is very easy to write a function that will resolve a relative path to a FolderItem. This is quite useful for console applications when, for instance, you need to resolve command-line arguments to FolderItems.

Here's the code, which has been tested in Mac OS X and Linux.

Function GetFolderItemFromRelativePath(path as String) As FolderItem dim theItem as FolderItem = SpecialFolder.CurrentWorkingDirectory if theItem is nil then return nil end if dim pathComponents() as String = Split(path, "/") for i as Integer = 0 to UBound(pathComponents) theItem = theItem.Child(pathComponents(i)) if theItem is nil then exit end if next return theItem End Function

This code depends on the following behavior.

While none of these is explicitly documented, each seems like something you would expect, at least for Mac OS X and Linux, so perhaps they should be documented.

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Comment

  1. “.” and “..” would not work on Mac OS 9. Teaching such OS-dependent ways is not good, IMO.
    The empty string, however, should be doc’d, as it can be made (and actually is) portable on all systems.

    — Thomas Tempelmann · Sep 10, 12:23 PM · #

  2. Were relative paths like these ever used in Mac OS 9 development? Of course, worrying about OS 9 is pointless, since REALbasic no longer supports it.

    — Charles · Oct 17, 12:24 PM · #

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