[SOLVED] Comparing two paths in python

Comparing two paths in python

Consider:

path1 = "c:/fold1/fold2"
list_of_paths = ["c:\\fold1\\fold2","c:\\temp\\temp123"]

if path1 in list_of_paths:
    print "found"

I would like the if statement to return True, but it evaluates to False, since it is a string comparison.

How to compare two paths irrespective of the forward or backward slashes they have? I'd prefer not to use the replace function to convert both strings to a common format.

Solution

Use os.path.normpath to convert c:/fold1/fold2 to c:\fold1\fold2:

>>> path1 = "c:/fold1/fold2"
>>> list_of_paths = ["c:\\fold1\\fold2","c:\\temp\\temp123"]
>>> os.path.normpath(path1)
'c:\\fold1\\fold2'
>>> os.path.normpath(path1) in list_of_paths
True
>>> os.path.normpath(path1) in (os.path.normpath(p) for p in list_of_paths)
True

os.path.normpath(path1) in map(os.path.normpath, list_of_paths) also works, but it will build a list with entire path items even though there's match in the middle. (In Python 2.x)

On Windows, you must use os.path.normcase to compare paths because on Windows, paths are not case-sensitive.