ReadMe.md

SmartPaths

A library for dealing with paths as strongly typed objects instead of strings.

Also included are abstractions for IFile, IFolder, and IFileSystem.
FileSystem implementations include physical disks as well as in memory RAM drives.

How are paths handled in SmartPaths?

Paths can be easily constructed via implicit conversion from string:

AbsoluteFolderPath absoluteFolder = @"C:\Users\Default\";
AbsoluteFilePath absoluteFile = @"C:\Windows\notepad.exe";

RelativeFolderPath relativeFolder = @"..\..\Users\Default\";
RelativeFilePath relativeFile = @"..\..\Windows\notepad.exe";

Absolute and relative paths can be combined in various ways:

AbsoluteFilePath combinedFile = absoluteFolder + relativeFile; 
AbsoluteFilePath combinedFile2 = absoluteFolder / relativeFile; 
// these both result in @"C:\Windows\notepad.exe"

RelativeFilePath relative = absoluteFolder >> absoluteFile;
// this results in @"..\..\Windows\notepad.exe"

How are Paths modeled in SmartPaths

The core path abstractions are illustrated in the following diagram:

The implementation of the abstractions are illustrated in the following diagram:

How are Files and Folders handled in SmartPaths?

A "Disk" file system and a "RAM" file system have been implemented.
Both types can be instantiated explicitly, or accessed from the "FileSystem" class.

FileSystem.Disk
FileSystem.Ram

The FileSystem class has a "Current" property that defaults to the DiskFileSystem.
This property is settable if you wish to use another file system in your application.\

FileSystem.Current

There is a "WorkingDirectory" folder path in every file system.
With the disk file system, this is backed by Environment.CurrentDirectory.

FileSystem.Disk.WorkingDirectory = @"c:\my\path\";

All file system methods taking a relative path, are resolved against the "WorkingDirectory" before being executed.

FileSystem.Disk.GetOrCreateFile(@"some\path");

How are Files and Folders modeled in SmartPaths?

The storage abstractions are illustrated in the following diagram:

Build

You can build SmartPaths using Visual Studio 2022.
We use Nuke as the build engine, and deliver packages on NuGet.org