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Asked: 2026-05-25T01:20:36+00:00

I’d like to have a standard function that will convert relative paths into absolute

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I’d like to have a standard function that will convert relative paths into absolute ones, and if possible I’d like to make it as cross-platform as possible (so I’d like to avoid calling external library functions). This is intended so it’s possible to prevent path exploitations.

I am aware that such a function wouldn’t be able to detect symbolic links, but I’m ok with that for my application.

I could roll my own code, but there might be some problems with e.g. how a platform handles encoding or variations of the “../” pattern.

Is there something like that already implemented?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    There’s not a single, universal function you can call, since there’s no such function in the C or C++ standard libraries. On Windows, you can use GetFullPathName. On Linux, Mac OS X, and other *Unix-based systems, you can use the realpath(3) function, which as a bonus also resolves symbolic links along the way.

    Beware: Any solution to this is only reliable in a single-threaded program. If you’re using multiple threads, another can go out and change the working directory out from under you unexpectedly, changing the path name resolution.

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