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+A comprehensive, cross-platform path manipulation library for Dart. |
+ |
+The path package provides common operations for manipulating paths: |
+joining, splitting, normalizing, etc. |
+ |
+We've tried very hard to make this library do the "right" thing on whatever |
+platform you run it on, including in the browser. When you use the top-level |
+functions, it will assume the current platform's path style and work with |
+that. If you want to explicitly work with paths of a specific style, you can |
+construct a `path.Context` for that style. |
+ |
+## Using |
+ |
+The path library was designed to be imported with a prefix, though you don't |
+have to if you don't want to: |
+ |
+```dart |
+import 'package:path/path.dart' as path; |
+``` |
+ |
+The most common way to use the library is through the top-level functions. |
+These manipulate path strings based on your current working directory and |
+the path style (POSIX, Windows, or URLs) of the host platform. For example: |
+ |
+```dart |
+path.join("directory", "file.txt"); |
+``` |
+ |
+This calls the top-level [join] function to join "directory" and |
+"file.txt" using the current platform's directory separator. |
+ |
+If you want to work with paths for a specific platform regardless of the |
+underlying platform that the program is running on, you can create a |
+[Context] and give it an explicit [Style]: |
+ |
+```dart |
+var context = new path.Context(style: Style.windows); |
+context.join("directory", "file.txt"); |
+``` |
+ |
+This will join "directory" and "file.txt" using the Windows path separator, |
+even when the program is run on a POSIX machine. |
+ |
+## FAQ |
+ |
+### Where can I use this? |
+ |
+Pathos runs on the Dart VM and in the browser under both dart2js and Dartium. |
+Under dart2js, it currently returns "." as the current working directory, while |
+under Dartium it returns the current URL. |
+ |
+### Why doesn't this make paths first-class objects? |
+ |
+When you have path *objects*, then every API that takes a path has to decide if |
+it accepts strings, path objects, or both. |
+ |
+ * Accepting strings is the most convenient, but then it seems weird to have |
+ these path objects that aren't actually accepted by anything that needs a |
+ path. Once you've created a path, you have to always call `.toString()` on |
+ it before you can do anything useful with it. |
+ |
+ * Requiring objects forces users to wrap path strings in these objects, which |
+ is tedious. It also means coupling that API to whatever library defines this |
+ path class. If there are multiple "path" libraries that each define their |
+ own path types, then any library that works with paths has to pick which one |
+ it uses. |
+ |
+ * Taking both means you can't type your API. That defeats the purpose of |
+ having a path type: why have a type if your APIs can't annotate that they |
+ expect it? |
+ |
+Given that, we've decided this library should simply treat paths as strings. |
+ |
+### How cross-platform is this? |
+ |
+We believe this library handles most of the corner cases of Windows paths |
+(POSIX paths are generally pretty straightforward): |
+ |
+ * It understands that *both* "/" and "\" are valid path separators, not just |
+ "\". |
+ |
+ * It can accurately tell if a path is absolute based on drive-letters or UNC |
+ prefix. |
+ |
+ * It understands that "/foo" is not an absolute path on Windows. |
+ |
+ * It knows that "C:\foo\one.txt" and "c:/foo\two.txt" are two files in the |
+ same directory. |
+ |
+### What is a "path" in the browser? |
+ |
+If you use this package in a browser, then it considers the "platform" to be |
+the browser itself and uses URL strings to represent "browser paths". |