[Gambas-user] Path specification

[Tobias Boege]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2018, Gianluigi wrote:
> 2018-08-19 11:47 GMT+02:00 Tobias Boege <taboege at gmail.com>:
> 
> > On Sat, 18 Aug 2018, Hans Lehmann wrote:
> > > Hello Charlie,
> > >
> > > what is special about the following line with regard to the path
> > > specification:
> > >
> > > Dim sFile As String = File.Load("../.project")
> > >
> > > ?
> > >
> >
> > This is documented here: http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/cat/path
> >
> > A relative path starting with ".." references a data file in the
> > currently running *project*, even if that code is executed from
> > a component or library.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tobi
> >
> > --
> > "There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk
> >
> 
> Hi Tobias,
> I find this explanation of the wiki unclear.
> From it, after compilation, it would seem that the concept of the "current
> project" no longer exists.

It very much exists. The "current project" is where relative paths are
resolved to. What you don't have is a "current working directory".

> But this simple code should work even after compilation, right?
> 
> Note: The file "foo.txt" is located inside the project data folder.
> 
> Public Sub Main()
> 
>   Dim sPath As String = "/tmp/path-test"
> 
>   Try Mkdir sPath
>   If Error Then Return
>   Try Copy "./foo.txt" To sPath &/ "foo.txt"
> 
> End
> 

Yes, this copies the file "foo.txt" in your project directory to the
temporary location. The difference between "." and ".." (BTW, "./foo.txt"
is the same as "foo.txt", even in this context) is that if you write a
component or library and load "foo.txt" in code running inside the
component, you access resources of the component project, not of the
project that is currently running and using that component.

If you want access from the component code to resources in the currently
running project, then you use "../foo.txt". gb.web.form does this,
for example, to serve files in your project's .public folder (think favicon,
css and javascript resources) without you having to think about it.

All of that works no matter if you are executing the project from the IDE,
from the project directory or a compiled .gambas archive.

Regards,
Tobi

-- 
"There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk