Forward slash or back slash

[Xu Wei Jie]

I am not sure if this is a PHP question. Generally, files and directories in Windows use backslash in their paths. Unix and others use forward slash. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

However, I wish to know how php functions(especially the file functions) interpret and handle the slashes. Is it platform independent? Sometimes, I do get errors when using the wrong slash.

 

Please advise me on this.

[Mchl]

When in doubt, use realpath

[Xu Wei Jie]

However, I do not need the absolute path. I just need it to detect which platform it is on and use the appropriate slash.

[Mark Baker]

$os = ((strpos(strtolower(PHP_OS), 'win') === 0) || (strpos(strtolower(PHP_OS), 'cygwin') !== false)) ? 'win32' : 'unix';
switch ($os) {
case 'win32' :	define('SLASH','/');
				break;
default :		define('SLASH','\\');
				break;
}

[Xu Wei Jie]

Thanks Mark. This snippet is very neat. However, there are many values PHP_OS can take. This means I need to find out all the operating systems on how they handle slashes.

 

However, I want php to figure out the slash to use instead of hardcoding based on PHP_OS. Is there such a feature?

 

Anyone has a lot of experience with such file handling in PHP?

[Xu Wei Jie]

I have read this

 

http://sg.php.net/manual/kr/function.dirname.php

 

It states that

 

On Windows, both slash (/) and backslash (\) are used as directory separator character. In other environments, it is the forward slash (/).

 

So is it safe that I can assume that forward slash / can be handled on any OS in PHP?

[Xu Wei Jie]

Hi all,

 

Could anyone tell me if it is safe that I can assume that forward slash / can be handled on any OS in PHP?

[Silverado_NL]

the way i do it is use the predifined constant called DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR

i would redefine it to something like DS to avoid having RLY long paths lol.

 

<?php
define( 'DS'	, DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR );
define( 'BASE' 	, __FILE__ );
$fs_path_array = explode( DS, BASE );
?>

 

works on both unix and windows systems.

[Xu Wei Jie]

Thanks. It is useful to know of this constant.

 

Here is a link on discussion of using DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.

I think it is useful as well.

 

http://old.alanhogan.com/tips/php/directory-separator-not-necessary

[corbin]

Using / will always work unless Windows changes to not allow using / which I don't see happening.

[redarrow]

i agree windows will never change / front slash, as it part off the internal library structure

of the operating system it self.