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doc: add note about path.basename on Windows #35065

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merged 1 commit into from
Sep 10, 2020
Merged

doc: add note about path.basename on Windows #35065

merged 1 commit into from
Sep 10, 2020

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tniessen
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@tniessen tniessen commented Sep 5, 2020

As usual, Windows makes everything difficult. This adds a note to path.basename about its behavior on Windows.

Checklist
  • make -j4 test (UNIX), or vcbuild test (Windows) passes
  • documentation is changed or added
  • commit message follows commit guidelines

@nodejs-github-bot nodejs-github-bot added doc Issues and PRs related to the documentations. path Issues and PRs related to the path subsystem. labels Sep 5, 2020
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tniessen commented Sep 5, 2020

cc @nodejs/platform-windows

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addaleax commented Sep 5, 2020

Is this behavior that we want to change? It would make sense to me to do so, given the filesystem’s behavior

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tniessen commented Sep 5, 2020

@addaleax I was surprised by this behavior in Node.js, too. It turns out to be a complex problem. Technically, it's not filesystem behavior. NTFS, the standard file system on Windows, implements case-sensitive names. I never tried this, but apparently Linux code within the Windows Subsystem for Linux will be able to utilize case-sensitivity in the host system's file system. So on the filesystem level, two files with the same name, but different capitalization, can exist. However, outside of WSL, Windows cannot handle case-sensitive names, and will hide one of those files from applications. (This causes some horrific issues, e.g., microsoft/WSL#3394, microsoft/WSL#3356).

This makes it virtually impossible for Windows applications to access one of those files. I think Win32 applications would only see one of the two files, and would be unable to access the other. But if that is true, then what happens if a Win32 application moves or deletes such a file? Would the other file still exist, and now be accessible? I have no idea, it's a terrible mess.

If we change the existing API in Node.js, it would probably have to be semver-major, so landing the warning earlier might be a good idea. Another issue might be that Windows simply doesn't have an equivalent to basename, so we don't really know what the "correct" behavior would be.

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addaleax commented Sep 5, 2020

@tniessen I’m fully agreeing :) I’m also okay with documenting this now and changing it in a semver-major update.

Trott
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@tniessen tniessen added author ready PRs that have at least one approval, no pending requests for changes, and a CI started. request-ci Add this label to start a Jenkins CI on a PR. labels Sep 6, 2020
@github-actions github-actions bot removed the request-ci Add this label to start a Jenkins CI on a PR. label Sep 6, 2020
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CI: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/33081/

Trott
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doc/api/path.md
@@ -87,6 +87,19 @@ path.basename('/foo/bar/baz/asdf/quux.html', '.html');
// Returns: 'quux'
```

Although Windows usually treats file names, including file extensions, in a
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The same is true on macOS. I'm not sure this is a Windows-specific thing. Do we want to change this note to be for all operating systems that treat file names as case-insensitive?

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On the other hand, maybe it's more of an issue for Windows (since macOS users are kind of used to things being wonky in this regard, whereas Windows users may have a more consistent "paths are case-insensitive" experience)?

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I wasn't aware of this on macOS. Reading up on it, it seems that this is not an OS thing, but a file system thing on macOS? As in, their defautl fs is case-insensitive, but the OS also supports case-sensitive file systems? That would be a subtle difference to Windows.

We can surely adapt the note if it makes sense. I have absolutely no experience with macOS, so I'd be happy about suggestions.

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I'm fine leaving the note as-is and updating can happen later if appropriate. But in case someone wants to pitch in.... @nodejs/platform-macos @nodejs/documentation

@Trott Trott force-pushed the doc-add-note-to-path-basename branch from d9983d9 to a03e15f Compare September 10, 2020 13:05
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Trott commented Sep 10, 2020

Landed in a03e15f

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doc: add note about path.basename on Windows
a03e15f 
PR-URL: nodejs#35065
Reviewed-By: Luigi Pinca <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Anna Henningsen <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Gerhard Stöbich <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Rich Trott <[email protected]>
@Trott Trott merged commit a03e15f into nodejs:master Sep 10, 2020
ruyadorno pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 17, 2020
@tniessen @ruyadorno
doc: add note about path.basename on Windows
93e4d54 
PR-URL: #35065
Reviewed-By: Luigi Pinca <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Anna Henningsen <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Gerhard Stöbich <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Rich Trott <[email protected]>
@ruyadorno ruyadorno mentioned this pull request Sep 21, 2020
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addaleax pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 22, 2020
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doc: add note about path.basename on Windows
3954b8f 
PR-URL: #35065
Reviewed-By: Luigi Pinca <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Anna Henningsen <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Gerhard Stöbich <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Rich Trott <[email protected]>
@codebytere codebytere mentioned this pull request Sep 28, 2020
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joesepi pushed a commit to joesepi/node that referenced this pull request Jan 8, 2021
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doc: add note about path.basename on Windows
2a30f6c 
PR-URL: nodejs#35065
Reviewed-By: Luigi Pinca <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Anna Henningsen <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Gerhard Stöbich <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Rich Trott <[email protected]>
@tniessen tniessen removed the author ready PRs that have at least one approval, no pending requests for changes, and a CI started. label Jan 14, 2021
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