This issue tracker has been migrated to GitHub, and is currently read-only.
For more information, see the GitHub FAQs in the Python's Developer Guide.

classification
Title: os.path, %HOME% set: realpath contradicts expanduser on '~'
Type: behavior Stage: resolved
Components: Library (Lib) Versions: Python 3.1, Python 2.6, Python 2.5
process
Status: closed Resolution: works for me
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: ezio.melotti Nosy List: ezio.melotti, markon, ronaldoussoren, strank, wrstlprmpft
Priority: low Keywords:

Created on 2007-01-29 08:07 by wrstlprmpft, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Messages (4)
msg61057 - (view) Author: wrstl prmpft (wrstlprmpft) Date: 2007-01-29 08:07
This might be intentional, but it is still confusing.

On Windows XP (german)::

  Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Sep 19 2006, 09:52:17) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)]
  ...
  In [1]: import os.path as path
  
  In [2]: import os; os.environ['HOME']
  
  Out[2]: 'D:\\HOME'
  
  In [3]: path.realpath('~')
  
  Out[3]: 'C:\\Dokumente und Einstellungen\\wrstl\\~'
  
  In [4]: path.expanduser('~')
  
  Out[4]: 'D:\\HOME'


The cause:
realpath uses path._getfullpathname which seems to do the '~' expansion, while path.expanduser has special code to look for HOME* environment variables.

I would expect that the HOME setting should always be honored if expansion is done.

cheers,
stefan
msg94210 - (view) Author: strank (strank) Date: 2009-10-18 10:27
I agree with the 'test needed' stage, but for that, the intended
behaviour should be decided on first. A quick test for checking current
behaviour::

  pythonX.Y -c 'import os; p = os.path; print (os.environ["HOME"],
p.realpath("~"), p.expanduser("~"), p.normpath("~"))'

Run both, with and without HOME set (or set to something unusual).

Current result on Linux for both 2.5 and 2.6::

  ('/home/rank', '/home/rank/~', '/home/rank', '~')

on Mac OS for 2.5, 2.6 and 3.1::

  ('/Users/rank', '/Users/rank/~', '/Users/rank', '~')

(for 3.1 it's not a tuple of course).

Cannot test on Windows at the moment, but I think there's already
something wrong going on here :-).

Adding Macintosh and tested python version tags (there's no Unix tag?).

cheers
msg94211 - (view) Author: Marco Buccini (markon) Date: 2009-10-18 11:06
If we decide to follow paths as '~' it means that we want to follow the
POSIX standard.

Infact, it doesn't make sense calling os.path.realpath as follow:
>>> import os
>>> os.getcwd()
'/home/marco/Desktop'
>>> os.path.realpath('~')
To get something like:
'/home/marco/Desktop/$HOME' 
that would expand as:
'/home/marco/Desktop/home/marco' 

At this point we should implement a new os.path.realpath to check if the
path passed as argument exists [ See ERRORS section:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/realpath.html
]. But this means that in the worst case, we would raise an Exception
(i.e., OSError).

As I've said [ here: http://bugs.python.org/issue6975 ] we cannot
implement a POSIX compliant os.path.realpath, since it would break with
existing code. You understand that a change like this is an API change. 

I think Python will have an own `realpath` version, not fully
POSIX-compliant, unluckly.
msg94217 - (view) Author: Ezio Melotti (ezio.melotti) * (Python committer) Date: 2009-10-18 17:42
realpath is only supposed to return an absolute pathname, resolving '.',
'..' and symlinks. It's not its duty to expand '~', therefore in your
example

> In [3]: path.realpath('~')
> Out[3]: 'C:\\Dokumente und Einstellungen\\wrstl\\~'

the '~' is seen as a normal file and the cwd is used to create the
absolute path to it (on Windows realpath is the same as abspath, on
Linux realpath calls abspath when there's nothing to resolve, so the
result is the same -- i.e. cwd + filename).


realpath needs better tests and documentation though, but this can be
addressed in #6975, so I'm closing this.
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:56:22adminsetgithub: 44516
2009-10-18 17:42:07ezio.melottisetstatus: open -> closed
messages: + msg94217

assignee: ezio.melotti
resolution: works for me
stage: test needed -> resolved
2009-10-18 11:24:32ronaldoussorensetassignee: ronaldoussoren -> (no value)
components: - macOS, Windows
nosy: ronaldoussoren, wrstlprmpft, strank, ezio.melotti, markon
2009-10-18 11:12:01ezio.melottisetnosy: + ezio.melotti
2009-10-18 11:06:08markonsetmessages: + msg94211
2009-10-18 10:27:27stranksetversions: + Python 2.5, Python 3.1
nosy: + strank, ronaldoussoren

messages: + msg94210

assignee: ronaldoussoren
components: + macOS
2009-10-17 14:47:32markonsetnosy: + markon
2009-03-30 19:48:11ajaksu2setpriority: normal -> low
stage: test needed
type: behavior
components: + Windows
versions: + Python 2.6, - Python 2.5
2007-01-29 08:07:40wrstlprmpftcreate