Why does Path.Combine not properly concatenate filenames that start with Path.DirectorySeparatorChar?

Question

This is kind of a philosophical question (which perhaps only Microsoft can truly answer), since it's doing exactly what the documentation says.

System.IO.Path.Combine

"If path2 contains an absolute path, this method returns path2."

Here's the actual Combine method from the .NET source. You can see that it calls CombineNoChecks, which then calls IsPathRooted on path2 and returns that path if so:

public static String Combine(String path1, String path2) {
    if (path1==null || path2==null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException((path1==null) ? "path1" : "path2");
    Contract.EndContractBlock();
    CheckInvalidPathChars(path1);
    CheckInvalidPathChars(path2);

    return CombineNoChecks(path1, path2);
}

internal static string CombineNoChecks(string path1, string path2)
{
    if (path2.Length == 0)
        return path1;

    if (path1.Length == 0)
        return path2;

    if (IsPathRooted(path2))
        return path2;

    char ch = path1[path1.Length - 1];
    if (ch != DirectorySeparatorChar && ch != AltDirectorySeparatorChar &&
            ch != VolumeSeparatorChar) 
        return path1 + DirectorySeparatorCharAsString + path2;
    return path1 + path2;
}

I don't know what the rationale is. I guess the solution is to strip off (or Trim) DirectorySeparatorChar from the beginning of the second path; maybe write your own Combine method that does that and then calls Path.Combine().

I wanted to solve this problem:

string sample1 = "configuration/config.xml";
string sample2 = "/configuration/config.xml";
string sample3 = "\\configuration/config.xml";

string dir1 = "c:\\temp";
string dir2 = "c:\\temp\\";
string dir3 = "c:\\temp/";

string path1 = PathCombine(dir1, sample1);
string path2 = PathCombine(dir1, sample2);
string path3 = PathCombine(dir1, sample3);

string path4 = PathCombine(dir2, sample1);
string path5 = PathCombine(dir2, sample2);
string path6 = PathCombine(dir2, sample3);

string path7 = PathCombine(dir3, sample1);
string path8 = PathCombine(dir3, sample2);
string path9 = PathCombine(dir3, sample3);

Of course, all paths 1-9 should contain an equivalent string in the end. Here is the PathCombine method I came up with:

private string PathCombine(string path1, string path2)
{
    if (Path.IsPathRooted(path2))
    {
        path2 = path2.TrimStart(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);
        path2 = path2.TrimStart(Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar);
    }

    return Path.Combine(path1, path2);
}

I also think that it is quite annoying that this string handling has to be done manually, and I'd be interested in the reason behind this.

This is the disassembled code from .NET Reflector for Path.Combine method. Check IsPathRooted function. If the second path is rooted (starts with a DirectorySeparatorChar), return second path as it is.

public static string Combine(string path1, string path2)
{
    if ((path1 == null) || (path2 == null))
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException((path1 == null) ? "path1" : "path2");
    }
    CheckInvalidPathChars(path1);
    CheckInvalidPathChars(path2);
    if (path2.Length == 0)
    {
        return path1;
    }
    if (path1.Length == 0)
    {
        return path2;
    }
    if (IsPathRooted(path2))
    {
        return path2;
    }
    char ch = path1[path1.Length - 1];
    if (((ch != DirectorySeparatorChar) &&
         (ch != AltDirectorySeparatorChar)) &&
         (ch != VolumeSeparatorChar))
    {
        return (path1 + DirectorySeparatorChar + path2);
    }
    return (path1 + path2);
}


public static bool IsPathRooted(string path)
{
    if (path != null)
    {
        CheckInvalidPathChars(path);
        int length = path.Length;
        if (
              (
                  (length >= 1) &&
                  (
                      (path[0] == DirectorySeparatorChar) ||
                      (path[0] == AltDirectorySeparatorChar)
                  )
              )

              ||

              ((length >= 2) &&
              (path[1] == VolumeSeparatorChar))
           )
        {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

In my opinion this is a bug. The problem is that there are two different types of "absolute" paths. The path "d:\mydir\myfile.txt" is absolute, the path "\mydir\myfile.txt" is also considered to be "absolute" even though it is missing the drive letter. The correct behavior, in my opinion, would be to prepend the drive letter from the first path when the second path starts with the directory separator (and is not a UNC path). I would recommend writing your own helper wrapper function which has the behavior you desire if you need it.

From MSDN:

If one of the specified paths is a zero-length string, this method returns the other path. If path2 contains an absolute path, this method returns path2.

In your example, path2 is absolute.