Concatenate absolute file paths in string

Question

I need to concatenate several absolute file paths in one string. But if I use character, that can be a part of file name or path the string will be messed. Which separator can be used?

Now I use File.pathSeparator and for Windows 7 it is ';'. But this character can be a part of file name.

SO question

Semicolons are legal in NTFS file paths.

I'm thinking about pipe symbol now, but I'm not sure about other file systems. And still interested while File.pathSeparator returned ';' but path can contain it. — Yegoshin Maxim, Mar 29 '13 at 09:48

Maroun · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-29T09:44:35.357

2

You can use File.pathSeparator:

The system-dependent path-separator character, represented as a string for convenience. This string contains a single character, namely pathSeparatorChar:

The system-dependent path-separator character. This field is initialized to contain the first character of the value of the system property path.separator. This character is used to separate filenames in a sequence of files given as a path list. On UNIX systems, this character is ':'; on Microsoft Windows systems it is ';'.

edited Mar 29 '13 at 09:44

answered Mar 29 '13 at 09:39

Maroun

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I use it now. But file names in Windows 7, for example, can have ';'. – Yegoshin Maxim Mar 29 '13 at 09:44
1

Unfortunately no, while the path separator is used to separate paths there's nothing that stops you from using a colon in a file name on Unix. – Joni Mar 29 '13 at 09:45
@YegoshinMaxim You can check whether the path until `;` exists, if not, then you know it's part of a file name. BTW, I'm working with it for long time and never encountered a file with `;` in its name. – Maroun Mar 29 '13 at 10:07
To create a file called `;.:*?<>|\^` on Linux, use `touch ';.:*?<>|\^'` – Joni Mar 29 '13 at 11:03

Joni · Answer 2 · 2013-03-29T10:51:29.100

The ASCII NUL character \0 cannot be a part of a pathname on Windows or Unix (including Mac), so you probably can use that as a separator.

The NUL character can't be used in a file path because it is the string terminator character in C, and the APIs for these operating systems are defined as a C libraries that use strings to represent file paths.

If you want to use a printable character as a separator you'll have to use an escape code scheme. One of the simplest is doubling the separator: suppose you use # as the separator; to add a path to the list you replace any # already present in the path with ##.

Concatenate absolute file paths in string

2 Answers2