`file:resolve-path` depends on whether the specified path exists

[ruv]

Description of the Problem

The function file:resolve-path( $path ) returns different results depending on whether the specified $path is an existing directory or not. Namely, it preserves the trailing slash in the first case, and removes it in the second case.

For example, if "/foo/bar" is an existing directory, file:resolve-path( "/foo/bar/" ) returns "/foo/bar/", otherwise it returns "/foo/bar" (i.e., the trailing slash is removed).

This behavior is not specified in the documentaion.

Expected Behavior

In the steps 1 and 3 below the result should be the same.

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

1. Run Xquery

file:resolve-path( "/foo/bar/" )

2. Create directory

mkdir -p /foo/bar/

1. Run Xquery

file:resolve-path( "/foo/bar/" )

Do you have an idea how to solve the issue?

I think, this function should not depend on existing files.

Regarding normalization, the expected behavior is that a trailing slash is preserved, because file:current-dir() and file:base-dir() return the path with a trailing slash, and fn:resolve-uri preserves the trailing slashes.

Update: According to EXPath File Module 4.0 / file:resolve-path, "If $path is an absolute path, it is returned unchanged".

See also: #1176

What is your configuration?

BaseX 11.8 beta a315259

[ChristianGruen]

The function does indeed consider the actual file system when resolving paths. The main reason is that it is common that paths to directories are specified without a trailing slash.

I see that you have already checked out the revised version of the official documentation. I agree that the first rule is misleading and needs to be revised, and we should also incorporate it in the documentation for BaseX. Thanks for the hint.

[ruv]

The function does indeed consider the actual file system when resolving paths.

The main reason is that it is common that paths to directories are specified without a trailing slash.

I see, this is another problem. It is illustrated by the example in the revised version:

• file:resolve-path('INF', 'C:/Windows/') results to 'C:/Windows/INF/'

(also unspecified behavior)

Thus, this function provides the trailing slash if the result path points to an existing directory in the local file system, and ensures that there is no trailing slash if the result path does not exists on the local file system or points to something that is not a directory.

This behavior seems very confusing and error-prone, because the constructed paths may depend on the state of the local file system.

[ChristianGruen]

the constructed paths may depend on the state of the local file system.

Exactly. This is summarized in one of the top sections of the spec:

Whenever a nondeterministic function generates a path that is known to refer to a directory, it will be suffixed with the operating-system-specific directory separator.

[ChristianGruen]

I have updated the BaseX documentation for file:resolve-path. We plan to revise the full page once the W3 draft is finalized.

In addition, I have created a qtspecs issue to discuss further changes: qt4cg/qtspecs#2088.