# Unexpected behaviour in Pathname?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 15, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960 "2005-11-15T14:30:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/1 "2005-11-15T14:30:26Z")

</div>

I’m writing a quick script to selectively process some files, and I  
found a bit of odd behaviour using Pathname#each and #each\_entry,  
which is best illustrated, rather than explained:

irb(main):001:0\> require ‘pathname’  
=\> true  
irb(main):002:0\> p = Pathname.new("/home/matt/test")  
=\> #Pathname:/home/matt/test  
irb(main):003:0\> p.entries.each{ |q|  
irb(main):004:1\* puts “operating on: #{q.dirname}/#{q.basename}”  
irb(main):005:1\> }  
operating on: ./.  
operating on: ./…  
operating on: ./a  
operating on: ./b  
operating on: ./c

Now, the problem that results is that in the block, I can’t do q.read  
reliably (or indeed q.anything), because it’s looking for q relative  
to the current directory, when surely it should be looking relative  
to p.

Apart from files not being found if you’re not in the correct  
directory, this could lead to more difficult-to-detect problems if  
you have a structure like the following and run the script in a  
directory which has identically-named files to the intended target,  
for instance:

/home/matt/project/training/{1, 2, 3, 4, etc}  
/home/matt/project/test/{1, 2, 3, 4, etc}

Since even when the directory to be processed is given as an absolute  
pathname, its subdirectories are treated as relative pathnames.

I realise that I can solve this by doing (p + q).read inside the  
block, but surely this isn’t the desired behaviour of Pathname#each?

thanks,  
matthew smillie.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/2 "2005-11-15T14:33:57Z")

</div>

> I’m writing a quick script to selectively process some files, and I  
> found a bit of odd behaviour using Pathname#each and #each\_entry,  
> which is best illustrated, rather than explained:

Quick clarification: I do mean Pathname#entries rather than  
Pathname#each.

Whoops.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/3 "2005-11-15T15:14:26Z")

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In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid),  
Matthew S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:

> I realise that I can solve this by doing (p + q).read inside the  
> block, but surely this isn’t the desired behaviour of Pathname#each?

It is intended for consistency to Dir.entries.

Use Pathname#children instead.

Note that Pathname#children doesn’t generates “.” and “…”.  
I hope you don’t need them.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/4 "2005-11-15T15:17:54Z")

</div>

hey everybody…

i need to get off this list. i will have limited access to this  
account  
for some time and i need tot turn off my lists. i tried “unsubscribe my  
name” and send it to the list but it neither unsubscribed me nor showed  
up  
in the list. on the website i cant really see how to unsubscribe only  
how to  
subscribe!

\n

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/5 "2005-11-15T15:24:28Z")

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Tanaka A. wrote:

> Note that Pathname#children doesn’t generates “.” and “…”.  
> I hope you don’t need them.

Another - possibly simpler - approach would be to use  
Dir[’/home/matt/test/\*’].

Kind regards

```
robert
```

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**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/6 "2005-11-15T15:30:29Z")

</div>

Selon niels wolf [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> hey everybody…
> 
> i need to get off this list. i will have limited access to this account  
> for some time and i need tot turn off my lists. i tried “unsubscribe my  
> name” and send it to the list but it neither unsubscribed me nor showed up  
> in the list. on the website i cant really see how to unsubscribe only how to  
> subscribe!

## You need to send the unsubscribe command to [mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid), as indicated in the e-mail you automatically received when you first joined the list 🙂 .

Christophe G…

[http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr](http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr)

It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.

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**Author:** ![M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@M.B.Smillie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/M.B.Smillie)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unexpected-behaviour-in-pathname/47960/7 "2005-11-15T15:30:29Z")

</div>

Hi,

In message “Re: unsubscribe… please…”  
on Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:15:52 +0900, “niels wolf” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
writes:

| i need to get off this list. i will have limited access to this account  
|for some time and i need tot turn off my lists. i tried “unsubscribe my  
|name” and send it to the list but it neither unsubscribed me nor showed up  
|in the list. on the website i cant really see how to unsubscribe only how to  
|subscribe!

You should have sent a command mail to ruby-talk-ctl. But I will remove  
you manually.

```
						matz.

```