Pathname represents the name of a file or directory on the filesystem, but not the file itself.
The pathname depends on the Operating System: Unix, Windows, etc. This library works with pathnames of local OS, however non-Unix pathnames are supported experimentally.
A Pathname can be relative or absolute. It’s not until you try to reference the file that it even matters whether the file exists or not.
Pathname is immutable. It has no method for destructive update.
The goal of this class is to manipulate file path information in a neater way than standard Ruby provides. The examples below demonstrate the difference.
All functionality from File, FileTest, and some from Dir and FileUtils is included, in an unsurprising way. It is essentially a facade for all of these, and more.
Pathname require 'pathname' pn = Pathname.new("/usr/bin/ruby") size = pn.size # 27662 isdir = pn.directory? # false dir = pn.dirname # Pathname:/usr/bin base = pn.basename # Pathname:ruby dir, base = pn.split # [Pathname:/usr/bin, Pathname:ruby] data = pn.read pn.open { |f| _ } pn.each_line { |line| _ }
pn = "/usr/bin/ruby" size = File.size(pn) # 27662 isdir = File.directory?(pn) # false dir = File.dirname(pn) # "/usr/bin" base = File.basename(pn) # "ruby" dir, base = File.split(pn) # ["/usr/bin", "ruby"] data = File.read(pn) File.open(pn) { |f| _ } File.foreach(pn) { |line| _ }
p1 = Pathname.new("/usr/lib") # Pathname:/usr/lib p2 = p1 + "ruby/1.8" # Pathname:/usr/lib/ruby/1.8 p3 = p1.parent # Pathname:/usr p4 = p2.relative_path_from(p3) # Pathname:lib/ruby/1.8 pwd = Pathname.pwd # Pathname:/home/gavin pwd.absolute? # true p5 = Pathname.new "." # Pathname:. p5 = p5 + "music/../articles" # Pathname:music/../articles p5.cleanpath # Pathname:articles p5.realpath # Pathname:/home/gavin/articles p5.children # [Pathname:/home/gavin/articles/linux, ...]
These methods are effectively manipulating a String, because that’s all a path is. None of these access the file system except for mountpoint?, children, each_child, realdirpath and realpath.
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File status predicate methods These methods are a facade for FileTest:
File property and manipulation methods These methods are a facade for File:
open(*args, &block)
These methods are a facade for Dir:
each_entry(&block)
IO These methods are a facade for IO:
each_line(*args, &block)
These methods are a mixture of Find, FileUtils, and others:
Method documentation As the above section shows, most of the methods in Pathname are facades. The documentation for these methods generally just says, for instance, “See FileTest.writable?”, as you should be familiar with the original method anyway, and its documentation (e.g. through ri) will contain more information. In some cases, a brief description will follow.
Creates a new Pathname object from the given string, path, and returns pathname object.
In order to use this constructor, you must first require the Pathname standard library extension.
require 'pathname' Pathname("/home/zzak") #=> #<Pathname:/home/zzak>
See also Pathname::new for more information.
Returns clean pathname of self with consecutive slashes and useless dots removed. The filesystem is not accessed.
If consider_symlink is true, then a more conservative algorithm is used to avoid breaking symbolic linkages. This may retain more .. entries than absolutely necessary, but without accessing the filesystem, this can’t be avoided.
See Pathname#realpath.
Creates a full path, including any intermediate directories that don’t yet exist.
See FileUtils.mkpath and FileUtils.mkdir_p
Returns the real (absolute) pathname for self in the actual filesystem.
Does not contain symlinks or useless dots, .. and ..
All components of the pathname must exist when this method is called.
Returns the real (absolute) pathname of self in the actual filesystem.
Does not contain symlinks or useless dots, .. and ..
The last component of the real pathname can be nonexistent.
Returns the birth time for the file. If the platform doesn’t have birthtime, raises NotImplementedError.
See File.birthtime.
The opposite of Pathname#absolute?
It returns false if the pathname begins with a slash.
p = Pathname.new('/im/sure') p.relative? #=> false p = Pathname.new('not/so/sure') p.relative? #=> true
Returns the last change time, using directory information, not the file itself.
See File.ctime.
See File.lstat.
Update the access and modification times of the file.
Same as Pathname#utime, but does not follow symbolic links.
See File.lutime.
Iterates over each component of the path.
Pathname.new("/usr/bin/ruby").each_filename {|filename| ... }
# yields "usr", "bin", and "ruby".
Returns an Enumerator if no block was given.
enum = Pathname.new("/usr/bin/ruby").each_filename
# ... do stuff ...
enum.each { |e| ... }
# yields "usr", "bin", and "ruby".