Cross-platform library for manipulating Windows paths?
boost, boost-filesystem, c++, path
Solution
It seems to be difficult to find a library for this. One possibility is `PathIsRelative` in Winelib, but I don't want to use Winelib.
I ended up doing a very specific solution just for deciding this small thing. Assuming that the path is correct (a fair assumption in my case), an absolute path will contain `:\`, while a relative path will not.
So, the bad, but working, solution is: There is no suitable library. Check for existence of `:\`.
Problem
I am writing a cross-platform application that needs to inspect and manipulate Windows-paths. Specifically, for the particular problem I am having now, I need to know if a path is absolute or relative. The current code uses `boost::filesystem::path` which of course works like a charm on Windows: ``` boost::filesystem::path the_path(the_path_as_a_string); if (!the_path.has_root_path()) { /* do stuff */ } ``` The problem with this approach is that `boost::filesystem::path` only has two modes: native and portable. This means that the Windows path grammar is unavailable when I compile under Linux (it is `#ifdef`ed out in the source). Hence, the path "C:\path" is considered absolute in Windows, but relative in Linux. Can you guys recommend a cross-platform C++ library that can inspect and manipulate Windows-paths? For now, the only Windows-path operation I will do is to check whether a path is absolute or not. The criterion I will use for an absolute path is that it both contains a drive letter, and the path starts with `\`. An example of an absolute path under this criterion is `C:\path`. These are both examples of relative paths under this criterion: `C:path`, `\path`.