[Pythonmac-SIG] Behavior of os.path.join() on the Mac

Jack Jansen jack@oratrix.nl
Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:54:16 +0100


> I'm familiar with Python on Linux, but the behavior of os.path.join()
> in MacPython is confusing me:
> [...]

Jon,
I think that what confuses you is Mac pathnames. Whereas on unix "a/b" is a 
relative path and "/a/b" is an absolute path on the mac it's the other way 
around: "a:b" is an absolute path and ":a:b" is a relative path. So in your 
example you're joining all absolute paths, and the join of two absolute paths 
is by definition the second path.

There is an exception to this rule, by the way: a filename without any colon 
at all is a relative path.

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