Package filepath implements utility routines for manipulating filename paths in a way compatible with the target operating system-defined file paths. It is a modification of the original GO package path/filepath solving severe errors in handling symbolic links.

The original package defines a function Clean that formally normalizes a file path by eliminating .. and . entries. This is done WITHOUT observing the actual file system. Although this is no problem for the function itself, because it is designed to do so, it becomes a severe problem for the whole package, because nearly all functions internally use Clean to clean the path. As a consequence even functions like Join deliver corrupted invalid results for valid inputs if the path incorporates symbolic links to directories. Especially EvalSymlinks cannot be used to evaluate paths to existing files, because Clean is internally used to normalize content of symbolic links.

This package provides a set of functions that do not hamper the meaning of path names keeping the rest of the original specification as far as possible. Additionally some new functions (like Canonical) or alternate versions of existing functions (like Split2) are provided that offer a more useful specification than the original one.

So far, the windows operating system is NOT tested.