perl-path-class

'Path::Class' is a module for manipulation of file and directory specifications (strings describing their locations, like ''/home/ken/foo.txt'' or ''C:\Windows\Foo.txt'') in a cross-platform manner. It supports pretty much every platform Perl runs on, including Unix, Windows, Mac, VMS, Epoc, Cygwin, OS/2, and NetWare. The well-known module File::Spec also provides this service, but it's sort of awkward to use well, so people sometimes avoid it, or use it in a way that won't actually work properly on platforms significantly different than the ones they've tested their code on. In fact, 'Path::Class' uses 'File::Spec' internally, wrapping all the unsightly details so you can concentrate on your application code. Whereas 'File::Spec' provides functions for some common path manipulations, 'Path::Class' provides an object-oriented model of the world of path specifications and their underlying semantics. 'File::Spec' doesn't create any objects, and its classes represent the different ways in which paths must be manipulated on various platforms (not a very intuitive concept). 'Path::Class' creates objects representing files and directories, and provides methods that relate them to each other. For instance, the following 'File::Spec' code: my $absolute = File::Spec->file_name_is_absolute( File::Spec->catfile( @dirs, $file ) ); can be written using 'Path::Class' as my $absolute = Path::Class::File->new( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute; or even as my $absolute = file( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute; Similar readability improvements should happen all over the place when using 'Path::Class'. Using 'Path::Class' can help solve real problems in your code too - for instance, how many people actually take the "volume" (like 'C:' on Windows) into account when writing 'File::Spec'-using code? I thought not. But if you use 'Path::Class', your file and directory objects will know what volumes they refer to and do the right thing. The guts of the 'Path::Class' code live in the Path::Class::File and Path::Class::Dir modules, so please see those modules' documentation for more details about how to use them.