File.getCanonicalFile "normalizes" more than Path.normalize on Windows

[alexarchambault]

My Windows user name is Alexandre, which is more than 8 characters long. Creating temporary directories gives me paths which are in "8.3" format:

C:\Users\Alexandre>amm -c "println(os.temp())"
Compiling C:\Users\Alexandre\(console)
C:\Users\ALEXAN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2085325879310438089.tmp

(with ALEXAN~1 rather than Alexandre in the path).

In this case, we have p != os.Path(p.toIO.getCanonicalFile), which is surprising I think:

C:\Users\Alexandre>amm -c "val p = os.temp(); println(p == os.Path(p.toNIO.normalize)); println(p == os.Path(p.toIO.getCanonicalFile))"
Compiling C:\Users\Alexandre\(console)
true
false

That originates from the different handling of the 8.3 / long paths, calling java.io.File.getCanonicalFile on those files rather than java.nio.file.Path.normalize returns different paths:

C:\Users\Alexandre>amm -c "val p = os.temp(); println(\"NIO: \" + p.toNIO); println(\" IO: \" + p.toIO.getCanonicalFile)"
Compiling C:\Users\Alexandre\(console)
NIO: C:\Users\ALEXAN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\2933120367880475586.tmp
 IO: C:\Users\Alexandre\AppData\Local\Temp\2933120367880475586.tmp

It seems File.getCanonicalFile calls GetLongPathName while Path.normalize doesn't.

I don't know if anyone has an opinion about this. I'd argue the paths returned by getCanonicalFile are more "normal", and should be used by default here. In particular, I've had issues with a downstream library calling getCanonicalFile at some point, which returned apparently different paths than os-lib.

I can send a PR to replace the few uses of Path.normalize by File.getCanonicalFile if everyone is fine with it.

[lefou]

I only use Windows very rarely and didn't get contact to the old "8.3" format for ages. So, to me using the "8.3" format as some canonical format can't be right, because of the information loss and also as it might depend on the current state of the disk. I'm not exactly sure what you are proposing, but if you mean you want to ensure os-lib always uses the long version as canonical path, than I'm all for it.

[alexarchambault]

if you mean you want to ensure os-lib always uses the long version as canonical path, than I'm all for it.

That's what I meant, yes. I opened https://github.com/com-lihaoyi/os-lib/pull/79 for it.