filecmp.cmpfiles w/ absolute path names

[a66de534-6da8-4d25-b66c-95dc23ca3d9d]

BPO	46512
Nosy	@terryjreedy, @bersbersbers

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields: ```python assignee = None closed_at = None created_at = labels = ['type-bug', 'library', '3.9'] title = 'filecmp.cmpfiles w/ absolute path names' updated_at = user = 'https://github.com/bersbersbers' ``` bugs.python.org fields: ```python activity = actor = 'bers' assignee = 'none' closed = False closed_date = None closer = None components = ['Library (Lib)'] creation = creator = 'bers' dependencies = [] files = [] hgrepos = [] issue_num = 46512 keywords = [] message_count = 3.0 messages = ['411570', '412043', '412058'] nosy_count = 2.0 nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'bers'] pr_nums = [] priority = 'normal' resolution = None stage = None status = 'open' superseder = None type = 'behavior' url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue46512' versions = ['Python 3.9'] ```

[a66de534-6da8-4d25-b66c-95dc23ca3d9d]

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)

[terryjreedy]

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?

[a66de534-6da8-4d25-b66c-95dc23ca3d9d]

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