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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T16:02:47+00:00

I keep getting myself in knots when I am manipulating paths and file names

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I keep getting myself in knots when I am manipulating paths and file names because I don’t follow a naming standard for path components.

Consider the following toy problem (Windows example, but hopefully the answer should be platform independent). You have been given the path of a folder:

C:\Users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\

You want to walk the folders underneath and compile all the .src files to .obj files.

At some point you are looking at the following path:

C:\Users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src

How would you name the following path components?

A. foo
B. foo.src
C. src
D. .src
E. C:\Users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\ (absolute path of the root)
F. Widget\foo.src (relative path of the file to absolute path of the root)
G. Widget\
H. C:\Users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\
I. C:\Users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src

Here is my attempt:

A. Base name? Basename?

B. File name? Filename?
The difference is important when choosing identifier names, and I am never consistent here.

C. Extension?

D. Extension? Wait, that is what I called C.
Should I avoid storing the dot, and just put it in when required?
What if there is no dot on a particular file?

E. ?

F. ?

G. Folder? But isn’t this a Windows-specific term?

H. Path name? Pathname? Path?

I. File name? Wait, that is what I called B.
Path name? Wait, that is what I called H.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I think your search for a "standard" naming convention will be in vain. Below are my proposals, based on existing, well-known programs.

    A) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                                   ---

    Vim calls it file root (:help filename-modifiers)

    B) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                                   -------

    file name or base name

    C) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                                       ___ (without dot)

    file/name extension

    D) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                                      ____ (with dot)

    also file extension. Simply store without the dot, if there is no dot on a file, it has no extension

    E) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
   -----------------------------------------

    top of the tree
    No convention, git calls it base directory

    F) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                            --------------

    path from top of the tree to the leaf
    relative path

    G) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
                                            ------

    one node of the tree
    no convention, maybe a simple directory

    H) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
   ------------------------------------------------

    dir name

    I) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src
   -------------------------------------------------------

    full/absolute path

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