pathlib.go

String types for path manipulation.

Benefits of using string types to represent paths

1. you can treat paths exactly like strings
2. String subtypes prevent common mix-ups: the go compiler will warn you about passing a string that could represent a file to a function that accepts a pathlib.Dir argument.
3. Each string subtype can have associated methods, consolidating functionality from "path/filepath", "os", and "io/fs"

Prior art

Inspired by Python's pathlib and Go's filesystem methods scattered throughout the <abbr title="Standard library">stdlib</abbr>.

There are plenty of other ports of pathlib to go, but only one other package one other uses string types to represent paths.

Trade-offs

Using this library adds some overhead compared to using the stdlib functions directly. Rough measurements on my x86_64 machine indicated that linking pathlib adds around a kilobyte to the size of a binary that does nothing except links path/filepath.