Tcl_SplitPath(), Tcl_JoinPath(), Tcl_GetPathType()

manipulate platform-dependent file paths 

Tcl Library Procedures

SYNOPSIS

#include <tcl.h>

Tcl_SplitPath(path, argcPtr, argvPtr)

char * Tcl_JoinPath(argc, argv, resultPtr)

Tcl_PathType Tcl_GetPathType(path)

ARGUMENTS

char *path (in) 

File path in a form appropriate for the current platform (see the filename reference page for acceptable forms for path names).

int *argcPtr (out) 

Filled in with number of path elements in path.

char ***argvPtr (out) 

*argvPtr will be filled in with the address of an array of pointers to the strings that are the extracted elements of path. There will be *argcPtr valid entries in the array, followed by a NULL entry.

int argc (in) 

Number of elements in argv.

char **argv (in) 

Array of path elements to merge together into a single path.

Tcl_DString *resultPtr (in/out) 

A pointer to an initialized Tcl_DString to which the result of Tcl_JoinPath() will be appended.

DESCRIPTION

These procedures may be used to disassemble and reassemble file paths in a platform independent manner: they provide C-level access to the same functionality as the file split, file join, and file pathtype commands.

Tcl_SplitPath() breaks a path into its constituent elements, returning an array of pointers to the elements using argcPtr and argvPtr. The area of memory pointed to by *argvPtr is dynamically allocated; in addition to the array of pointers, it also holds copies of all the path elements. It is the caller's responsibility to free all of this storage. For example, suppose that you have called Tcl_SplitPath() with the following code: 

int argc;
char *path;
char **argv;
...
Tcl_SplitPath(string, &argc, &argv);

Then you should eventually free the storage with a call like the following: 

Tcl_Free((char *) argv);

Tcl_JoinPath() is the inverse of Tcl_SplitPath(): it takes a collection of path elements given by argc and argv and generates a result string that is a properly constructed path. The result string is appended to resultPtr. ResultPtr must refer to an initialized Tcl_DString.

If the result of Tcl_SplitPath() is passed to Tcl_JoinPath(), the result will refer to the same location, but may not be in the same form. This is because Tcl_SplitPath() and Tcl_JoinPath() eliminate duplicate path separators and return a normalized form for each platform.

Tcl_GetPathType() returns the type of the specified path, where Tcl_PathType is one of TCL_PATH_ABSOLUTE, TCL_PATH_RELATIVE, or TCL_PATH_VOLUME_RELATIVE. See the filename reference page for a description of the path types for each platform.

PORTABILITY

Windows 10. Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2019. Windows 11. Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2025.

AVAILABILITY

PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition

PTC MKS Toolkit 10.5 Documentation Build 40.