id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
6813	canonical function converts root-directory separator from '\' to '/' on Windows	Alex Goldberg <alex.goldberg@…>	Beman Dawes	"boost::filesystem::canonical reverses the path separator on rooted paths

Consider the following line:
{{{
boost::filesystem::path convertedPath = boost::filesystem::canonical(""C:\\Foo\\Bar\\..\\Bar\\Baz"");
}}}

On Windows, convertedPath is set to ""C:/Foo\Bar\Baz"", where I would expect it to be set to ""C:\Foo\Bar\Baz""

The documentation states: ""Returns: A canonical path that refers to the same file system object as absolute(p,base).""

If the input path has no symbolic links, 'dot' directories, or 'dot-dot' directories, then I would expect the output to match a call to boost::filesystem::absolute.

For example:
{{{
boost::filesystem::path canonicalPath = boost::filesystem::canonical(""Bar\\Baz"", ""C:\\Foo"");
boost::filesystem::path absolutePath = boost::filesystem::absolute(""Bar\\Baz"", ""C:\\Foo"");
}}}

canonicalPath is set to ""C:/Foo\Bar\Baz"", while absolutePath is set to ""C:\Foo\Bar\Baz"".

Looking at the implementation, this is related to the issue in ticket 5989 (https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/5989).  I agree with the sentiments in that ticket, but if the behavior of the path iterator will not be changing, then I think the canonical function should be updated to preseve path consistency in Windows."	Bugs	new	To Be Determined	filesystem	Boost 1.49.0	Problem		canonical