This issue tracker has been migrated to GitHub, and is currently read-only.
For more information, see the GitHub FAQs in the Python's Developer Guide.

classification
Title: filecmp.cmpfiles w/ absolute path names
Type: behavior Stage:
Components: Library (Lib) Versions: Python 3.9
process
Status: open Resolution:
Dependencies: Superseder:
Assigned To: Nosy List: bers, terry.reedy
Priority: normal Keywords:

Created on 2022-01-25 09:46 by bers, last changed 2022-04-11 14:59 by admin.

Messages (3)
msg411570 - (view) Author: bers (bers) Date: 2022-01-25 09:46
It is very easy to use filecmp.cmpfiles incorrectly by passing absolute path names. This is because
1. the documentations does not say that relative path names have to be passed, and
2. filecmp.cmpfiles does not issue a warning when absolute path names are passed.

Consider this example code, which does look sensible at first glance:

    files = dir_a.glob("*")
    (equal, _, _) = filecmp.cmpfiles(dir_a, dir_b, files, shallow=False)
    print("equal:", *equal)

However, in the full example below, you will see that this code fails to detect that two files are actually different.

"""Demo behavior of filecmp.cmpfiles with absolute path names."""
import filecmp
import tempfile
from pathlib import Path

with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdirname:
    # prepare two different files
    tmpdir = Path(tmpdirname)
    dir_a = tmpdir / "a"
    dir_b = tmpdir / "b"
    file_a = dir_a / "foo.txt"
    file_b = dir_b / "foo.txt"

    dir_a.mkdir()
    dir_b.mkdir()
    file_a.write_text("A")
    file_b.write_text("B")

    # actually diff the files
    files = dir_a.glob("*")
    # filecmp should issue a warning here!
    (equal, _, _) = filecmp.cmpfiles(dir_a, dir_b, files, shallow=False)
    # otherwise, this result is easy to misinterpret - files are reported as equal
    print("equal:", *equal)
msg412043 - (view) Author: Terry J. Reedy (terry.reedy) * (Python committer) Date: 2022-01-28 23:12
https://docs.python.org/3/library/filecmp.html#filecmp.cmpfiles
I consider not working for absolute path names to be a bug.  Did your example work with relative paths?
msg412058 - (view) Author: bers (bers) Date: 2022-01-29 08:21
> Did your example work with relative paths?

Yes, it does. Just append the following to my example code:

    # actually diff the files - correctly!
    files = [f.relative_to(dir_a) for f in dir_a.glob("*")]
    (_, different, _) = filecmp.cmpfiles(dir_a, dir_b, files, shallow=False)
    print("different:", *different)

Output then is

equal: C:\Users\bers\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp1p6jh4rg\a\foo.txt
different: foo.txt
History
Date User Action Args
2022-04-11 14:59:55adminsetgithub: 90670
2022-01-29 08:21:26berssetmessages: + msg412058
2022-01-28 23:12:53terry.reedysetnosy: + terry.reedy

messages: + msg412043
title: Explicit or correct behavior of filecmp.cmpfiles w/ absolute path names -> filecmp.cmpfiles w/ absolute path names
2022-01-25 09:46:10berscreate