path()¶

audeer.path(path, *paths, follow_symlink=False)[source]¶

Expand and normalize to absolute path.

It uses os.path.realpath() and os.path.expanduser() to ensure an absolute path without .. or ~, and independent of the path separator of the operating system. If follow_symlink is False, the faster os.path.abspath() is used instead of os.path.realpath().

Parameters

path (Union[str, bytes]) – path to file, directory
*paths (Sequence[Union[str, bytes]]) – additional arguments to be joined with path by os.path.join()
follow_symlink (bool) – if True symlinks are followed and the path of the original file is returned

Return type

str

Returns

(joined and) expanded path

Examples

>>> home = path("~")
>>> folder = path("~/path/.././path")
>>> folder[len(home) + 1 :]
'path'
>>> file = path("~/path/.././path", "./file.txt")
>>> file[len(home) + 1 :]
'path/file.txt'
>>> file = audeer.touch("file.txt")
>>> link = path("link.txt")
>>> os.symlink(file, link)
>>> os.path.basename(path(link))
'link.txt'
>>> os.path.basename(path(link, follow_symlink=True))
'file.txt'