File::Spec::Mac 3.25

SYNOPSIS

require File::Spec::Mac; # Done internally by File::Spec if needed

Methods for manipulating file specifications.

METHODS

canonpath

On Mac OS, theres nothing to be done. Returns what its given.

catdir()

Concatenate two or more directory names to form a path separated by colons (":") ending with a directory. Resulting paths are relative by default, but can be forced to be absolute (but avoid this, see below). Automatically puts a trailing ":" on the end of the complete path, because thats whats done in MacPerls environment and helps to distinguish a file path from a directory path.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Beginning with version 1.3 of this module, the resulting path is relative by default and not absolute. This decision was made due to portability reasons. Since File::Spec->catdir() returns relative paths on all other operating systems, it will now also follow this convention on Mac OS. Note that this may break some existing scripts.

The intended purpose of this routine is to concatenate directory names. But because of the nature of Macintosh paths, some additional possibilities are allowed to make using this routine give reasonable results for some common situations. In other words, you are also allowed to concatenate paths instead of directory names (strictly speaking, a string like ":a" is a path, but not a name, since it contains a punctuation character ":").

So, beside calls like

catdir("a") = ":a:"
catdir("a","b") = ":a:b:"
catdir() = "" (special case)

calls like the following

catdir(":a:") = ":a:"
catdir(":a","b") = ":a:b:"
catdir(":a:","b") = ":a:b:"
catdir(":a:",":b:") = ":a:b:"
catdir(":") = ":"

are allowed.