Portable filename comparison

[Ken Dyck]

Is there a way with Python 2.2 to portably test the equivalence of two
filenames?

The os.path.samefile function seems to do what I want, but it is only
available on Unix and Mac. I need something that works on Windows.

The os.path.normcase and os.path.normpath functions are available on all
platforms, but don't quite get me there. For example, on Windows

os.path.normcase(os.path.normpath("C:\Program Files")) 'c:\\program files' os.path.normcase(os.path.normpath("C:\PROGRA~1"))

'c:\\progra~1'

I suppose I could find a way to call into the Win32 API directly, but I'd
prefer to use a portable solution if I can find one.

Any suggestions?

Ken

[Peter Hansen]

Ken Dyck wrote:

Is there a way with Python 2.2 to portably test the equivalence of two
filenames?

The os.path.samefile function seems to do what I want, but it is only
available on Unix and Mac. I need something that works on Windows.

The os.path.normcase and os.path.normpath functions are available on all
platforms, but don't quite get me there. For example, on Windows

os.path.normcase(os.path.normpath("C:\Program Files")) 'c:\\program files' os.path.normcase(os.path.normpath("C:\PROGRA~1")) 'c:\\progra~1'

I suppose I could find a way to call into the Win32 API directly, but I'd
prefer to use a portable solution if I can find one.

I believe you need to make your own, since the whole concept of thus
mungled long names on Windows is definitely not portable.

Here's a snippet that might make this seem much easier:

def expand(shortname): .... from win32api import GetLongPathName
.... return GetLongPathName(shortname)
.... expand('c:\\progra~1')

'c:\\Program Files'

-Peter