From: Renaud HEBERT <renaud.hebert@...>
Date: 2001-08-31T00:30:34+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:20583] Re: Relative path

So far we have:
def rel_path(a, b)
    a = a.split('/')
    b = b.split('/')

    raise "windows sucks" if a[0] =~ /^\w\:$/ and a[0] != b[0]

    while a[0] == b[0]
        a.shift
        b.shift
    end

    '../'*a.size + b.join('/')
end

I like it but
1) rel_path(a, a) loops indefinitely.
2) the shifting of two array maybe not the "quickest way"

So here is my version:

def rel_path(a, b)
    a = a.split('/')
    b = b.split('/')

    raise "windows sucks" if a[0] =~ /^\w\:$/ and a[0] != b[0]

    i = 0
    while ((a[i] == b[i]) && (i < a.size))
        i += 1
    end

    '../'*(a.size - i) + b[i..-1].join('/')
end

But:
1) it is still very fragile: 'dir//dir2' and 'dir/./dir2' will give
wrong results when compared to 'dir/dir2'
2) unix is case sensitive, windows is not; '/' vs '\'..
3) it should be possible to do it only with strings manipulation to be
more efficient..

 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gardian, Milan [mailto:Milan.Gardian@LEIBINGER.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 9:41 AM
> To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
> Subject: [ruby-talk:20580] Relative path
> 
> Hello,
> 
> what is the shortest & quickest way of finding a relative path between path1
> and path2 in Ruby? (either universal or Win32 platform-specific)...
> 
> E.g.:
> -----
> path1 = "c:/temp/foo"
> path2 = "c:/temp/foo/dir/another_dir"
> path3 = "c:/special_dir"
> path4 = "d:/dir"
> 
> rel_path(path1, path2) -> "dir/another_dir"
> 
> rel_path(path2, path1) -> "../.."
> 
> rel_path(path2, path3) -> "../../../special_dir"
> 
> rel_path(path1, path4) -> Exception - not possible
> -----
> 
> Thank you for your help!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>         Milan

-- 
Renaud Hebert
phone: (33) 01 30 77 59 92
mailto:renaud.hebert@alcatel.fr