std::experimental::filesystem:: absolute, std::experimental::filesystem:: system_complete

From cppreference.com
Defined in header <experimental/filesystem>
path absolute ( const path & p, const path & base = current_path ( ) ) ;
(1) (filesystem TS)
path system_complete ( const path & p ) ;
path system_complete ( const path & p, error_code & ec ) ;
(2) (filesystem TS)
1) Returns absolute path of p relative to base according to the following rules:
  • If p has both root name and root directory (e.g. "C:\users" , then the path is returned, unmodified.
  • If p has a root name not followed by a root directory (e.g. "C:text.txt" ), then base is inserted between p 's root name and the remainder of p . Formally, p. root_name ( ) / fs :: absolute ( base ) . root_directory ( ) / fs :: absolute ( base ) . relative_path ( ) / p. relative_path ( ) is returned,
  • If p has no root name, but has a root directory (e.g. "/var/tmp/file.txt" on a POSIX system or "\users \A BC\Document.doc" on Windows, then the root name of base , if it has one, is prepended to p (on a POSIX system, p is not modified, on a Windows system, "\users \A BC\Document.doc" becomes "C:\users \A BC\Document.doc" . Formally, fs :: absolute ( base ) . root_name ( ) / p is returned.
  • If p has no root name and no root directory (e.g. "../file.txt" , then the entire base is prepended to p . Formally, absolute ( base ) / p is returned.
2) Obtains the absolute path that identifies the file that the OS file opening API would access given the pathname p . On POSIX systems, this is equivalent to (1) with the default base ( fs::current_path() ). On Windows systems, each logical drive has its own current working directory, and so if p is not already absolute and has a root name component (e.g. "E:filename.txt" , that drive's current working directory is used, which may have been set by an earlier executed program.

Parameters

p - path to convert to absolute form
base - path (not necessarily absolute) to serve as the starting location
ec - out-parameter for error reporting in the non-throwing overload

Return value

Returns an absolute (although not necessarily canonical) path formed by combining p and base as described above.

Exceptions

The overload that does not take an error_code & parameter throws filesystem_error on underlying OS API errors, constructed with p as the first argument, base as the second argument, and the OS error code as the error code argument. std:: bad_alloc may be thrown if memory allocation fails. The overload taking an error_code & parameter sets it to the OS API error code if an OS API call fails, and executes ec. clear ( ) if no errors occur. This overload has
noexcept specification:
noexcept

Notes

On systems that support root names (e.g. Windows), the result of calling absolute on a relative path that has a root name (e.g. "D:file.txt" when the root name of base is different will usually result in a non-existent path.

Example

#include <filesystem>
#include <iostream>
namespace fs = std::experimental::filesystem;
 
int main()
{
    fs::path p = "C:cl.exe";
    std::cout << "Current path is " << fs::current_path() << '\n'
              << "Absolute path for " << p << " is " << fs::absolute(p) << '\n'
	      << "System complete path for " << p << " is "
              << fs::system_complete(p) << '\n';
}

Possible output:

Current path is "D:/local/ConsoleApplication1"
Absolute path for "C:cl.exe" is "C:/local/ConsoleApplication1/cl.exe"
System complete path for "C:cl.exe" is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\cl.exe"

See also

composes a canonical path
(function)