Dir.glob fails when using File.join

Developers
1

On a Windows machine using SU 2020
I am grabbing the skp file name from the model.
project = Sketchup.active_model.path.split(‘.’)[0]

Then I am joining additional folders to the path
file_spec = File.join(proj, ‘rul’, ‘*.txt’)

The result is
E:\Users\Owner\My Documents\new test/rul/*.txt

Dir.glob(file_spec) # fails

If I replace the backslash with a forward slash
proj.gsub!(‘\’, ‘/’)

Then it Dir.glob works

What is the best way to handle this for MacOS and Windows

2

one way is use #expand_path to get the file separators…

project = File.expand_path(Sketchup.active_model.path)[0..-5]

john

3

Ruby uses ‘/’ as the path separator, which makes it problematic that model#path on Windows returns a path using ''. This causes Dir.glob to fail because in its pattern, '' is explicitly reserved as the escape character.

I think your gsub! is the most obvious and portable way to fix the issue, as it is harmless on Mac and does what you want on Windows.

4 
def slash(path)
  return path if !WIN
  path.gsub(/\\\\|\\/,'/')
end

Don’t use the bang form as you could get nil returned upon no change.

5

a backslash is a legal mac filename char, people do use it… (ill advisably)

letting ruby supply the ruby path is safer…

john

6

This is actually dangerous, as folder names can include periods.

Safer …

def project_path(model = Sketchup.active_model)
  path = slash(model.path)
  dir = File.dirname(path)
  File.join( dir, model.title, rul)
end

# Elsewhere ...
file_spec = File.join(project_path(), '*.txt')
7

Good catch. gsub and gsub! differ in this respect. Ya gotta love consistency!

8

Thanks guys - this should give me enough to clean things up.

9 
if File::ALT_SEPARATOR != File::SEPARATOR
  # replace
end