path_normalizer

🧹 A lightweight Rust crate for lexically normalizing paths — no filesystem access required.

Why?

This crate is useful for scenarios where you need to manipulate or validate paths without relying on the filesystem. It's particularly handy for:

• Virtual Filesystems: When working with in-memory or virtual filesystems, you can't rely on actual paths existing on disk.
• Configuration Parsing: When reading configuration files, you may need to normalize paths specified by users.
• Sandboxed Environments: In environments where filesystem access is restricted, you can still perform path manipulations.

Note: The features of this crate exist in the Rust standard libary (std), but only on the nightly toolchain. This crate provides its features but available regardless of Rust toolchain.

✨ Features

• Normalize paths like "foo/./bar/../baz" to "foo/baz"
• Works purely on string logic — doesn't touch the filesystem
• Cross-platform and fast

📦 Installation

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
path_normalizer = "0.1"

🚀 Usage

use path_normalizer::PathNormalizeExt;
use std::path::Path;

fn main() {
    let path = Path::new("foo/./bar/../baz");
    let normalized = path.normalize_path().unwrap();
    println!("Normalized: {}", normalized.display()); // Outputs: foo/baz
}

🔒 Why Lexical?

Unlike canonicalize(), this crate doesn't resolve symlinks or check the filesystem. It simply rewrites the path using lexical rules — making it ideal for virtual paths, config parsing, or sandboxed environments.

📚 License

MIT

Made with ❤️ for Rustaceans who like their paths tidy.