'\"
'\" Copyright (c) 1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
'\"
'\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution
'\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
'\" 
'\" RCS: @(#) $Id: SplitPath.3,v 1.7 2002/03/09 19:17:58 dgp Exp $
'\" 
.so man.macros
.TH Tcl_SplitPath 3 7.5 Tcl "Tcl Library Procedures"
.BS
.SH NAME
Tcl_SplitPath, Tcl_JoinPath, Tcl_GetPathType \- manipulate platform-dependent file paths
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
\fB#include <tcl.h>\fR
.sp
\fBTcl_SplitPath\fR(\fIpath, argcPtr, argvPtr\fR)
.sp
char *
\fBTcl_JoinPath\fR(\fIargc, argv, resultPtr\fR)
.sp
Tcl_PathType
\fBTcl_GetPathType\fR(\fIpath\fR)
.SH ARGUMENTS
.AS Tcl_DString ***argvPtr
.AP "CONST char * CONST" *argvPtr in
File path in a form appropriate for the current platform (see the
\fBfilename\fR manual entry for acceptable forms for path names).
.AP int *argcPtr out
Filled in with number of path elements in \fIpath\fR.
.AP "CONST char" ***argvPtr out
\fI*argvPtr\fR will be filled in with the address of an array of
pointers to the strings that are the extracted elements of \fIpath\fR.
There will be \fI*argcPtr\fR valid entries in the array, followed by
a NULL entry.
.AP int argc in
Number of elements in \fIargv\fR.
.AP "CONST char * CONST" *argv in
Array of path elements to merge together into a single path.
.AP Tcl_DString *resultPtr in/out
A pointer to an initialized \fBTcl_DString\fR to which the result of
\fBTcl_JoinPath\fR will be appended.
.BE

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
These procedures have been superceded by the objectified procedures in
the \fBFileSystem\fR man page, which are more efficient.
.PP
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 \fBfile split\fR, \fBfile join\fR, and
\fBfile pathtype\fR commands.
.PP
\fBTcl_SplitPath\fR breaks a path into its constituent elements,
returning an array of pointers to the elements using \fIargcPtr\fR and
\fIargvPtr\fR.  The area of memory pointed to by \fI*argvPtr\fR 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 \fBTcl_SplitPath\fR with the
following code:
.CS
int argc;
char *path;
char **argv;
\&...
Tcl_SplitPath(string, &argc, &argv);
.CE
Then you should eventually free the storage with a call like the
following:
.CS
Tcl_Free((char *) argv);
.CE
.PP
\fBTcl_JoinPath\fR is the inverse of \fBTcl_SplitPath\fR: it takes a
collection of path elements given by \fIargc\fR and \fIargv\fR and
generates a result string that is a properly constructed path. The
result string is appended to \fIresultPtr\fR.  \fIResultPtr\fR must
refer to an initialized \fBTcl_DString\fR.
.PP
If the result of \fBTcl_SplitPath\fR is passed to \fBTcl_JoinPath\fR,
the result will refer to the same location, but may not be in the same
form.  This is because \fBTcl_SplitPath\fR and \fBTcl_JoinPath\fR
eliminate duplicate path separators and return a normalized form for
each platform.
.PP
\fBTcl_GetPathType\fR returns the type of the specified \fIpath\fR,
where \fBTcl_PathType\fR is one of \fBTCL_PATH_ABSOLUTE\fR,
\fBTCL_PATH_RELATIVE\fR, or \fBTCL_PATH_VOLUME_RELATIVE\fR.  See the
\fBfilename\fR manual entry for a description of the path types for
each platform.

.SH KEYWORDS
file, filename, join, path, split, type