filepath

Library for manipulating FilePaths in a cross platform way.

https://github.com/haskell/filepath#readme

Version on this page:1.4.1.2
LTS Haskell 23.24:1.4.301.0
Stackage Nightly 2025-05-28:1.5.4.0
Latest on Hackage:1.5.4.0

See all snapshots filepath appears in

BSD-3-Clause licensed and maintained by Neil Mitchell
This version can be pinned in stack with:filepath-1.4.1.2@sha256:bfe1beec4234b511f1b1c2c50dc390a80043dfca037613bad191681e1a9b1e88,2195

Module documentation for 1.4.1.2

Depends on 1 package(full list with versions):
base

FilePath Hackage version Linux Build Status Windows Build Status

The filepath package provides functionality for manipulating FilePath values, and is shipped with both GHC and the Haskell Platform. It provides three modules:

  • System.FilePath.Posix manipulates POSIX/Linux style FilePath values (with / as the path separator).
  • System.FilePath.Windows manipulates Windows style FilePath values (with either \ or / as the path separator, and deals with drives).
  • System.FilePath is an alias for the module appropriate to your platform.

All three modules provide the same API, and the same documentation (calling out differences in the different variants).

Should FilePath be an abstract data type?

The answer for this library is “no”. While an abstract FilePath has some advantages (mostly type safety), it also has some disadvantages:

  • In Haskell the definition is type FilePath = String, and all file-oriented functions operate on this type alias, e.g. readFile/writeFile. Any abstract type would require wrappers for these functions or lots of casts between String and the abstraction.
  • It is not immediately obvious what a FilePath is, and what is just a pure String. For example, /path/file.ext is a FilePath. Is /? /path? path? file.ext? .ext? file?
  • Often it is useful to represent invalid files, e.g. /foo/*.txt probably isn’t an actual file, but a glob pattern. Other programs use foo//bar for globs, which is definitely not a file, but might want to be stored as a FilePath.
  • Some programs use syntactic non-semantic details of the FilePath to change their behaviour. For example, foo, foo/ and foo/. are all similar, and refer to the same location on disk, but may behave differently when passed to command-line tools.
  • A useful step to introducing an abstract FilePath is to reduce the amount of manipulating FilePath values like lists. This library hopes to help in that effort.

Changes

Changelog for filepath package

Note: below all FilePath values are unquoted, so \\ really means two backslashes.

1.4.1.2 Feb 2017

  • Bundled with GHC 8.2.1

1.4.1.1 Nov 2016

  • Bundled with GHC 8.0.2

  • Documentation improvements

  • Allow QuickCheck-2.9

1.4.1.0 Dec 2015

  • Bundled with GHC 8.0.1

  • Add replaceExtensions and stripExtension functions.

  • Make isValid detect more invalid Windows paths, e.g. nul .txt and foo\nbar.

  • Improve the documentation.

  • Bug fix: isValid "\0" now returns False, instead of True

1.4.0.0 Mar 2015

  • Bundled with GHC 7.10.1

  • New function: Add -<.> as an alias for replaceExtension.

  • Semantic change: joinDrive /foo bar now returns /foo/bar, instead of /foobar

  • Semantic change: on Windows, splitSearchPath File1;\"File 2\" now returns [File1,File2] instead of [File1,\"File2\"]

  • Bug fix: on Posix systems, normalise //home now returns /home, instead of //home

  • Bug fix: normalise /./ now returns / on Posix and \ on Windows, instead of // and \\

  • Bug fix: isDrive "" now returns False, instead of True

  • Bug fix: on Windows, dropTrailingPathSeparator / now returns / unchanged, instead of the normalised \

  • Bug fix: on Windows, equalFilePath C:\ C: now returns False, instead of True

  • Bug fix: on Windows, isValid \\\foo now returns False, instead of True

  • Bug fix: on Windows, isValid \\?\D:file now returns False, instead of True

  • Bug fix: on Windows, normalise \ now returns \ unchanged, instead of \\

  • Bug fix: on Windows, normalise C:.\ now returns C:, instead of C:\\

  • Bug fix: on Windows, normalise //server/test now returns \\server\test, instead of //server/test unchanged

  • Bug fix: on Windows, makeRelative / // now returns //, instead of ""

1.3.0.2 Mar 2014

  • Bundled with GHC 7.8.1

  • Update to Cabal 1.10 format

  • Minor Haddock cleanups

1.3.0.1 Sep 2012

  • Bundled with GHC 7.6.1

  • No changes

1.3.0.0 Feb 2012

  • Bundled with GHC 7.4.1

  • Add support for SafeHaskell

  • Bug fix: normalise / now returns /, instead of /.