App crash when File class receive an empty string

[JeremyDufeux]

I've just found an issue with the File class, passing an empty string to it causes the app to crash unexpectedly without throwing any error:

try {
  await File('').exists();
} catch (e) {
    e.toString();
}

Dart version: 3.7.0
Futter version: 3.29.0
Platform: Windows 11

Let me know if you need other information to reproduce the issue

[RohitSaily]

Dart SDK version: 3.8.0-149.0.dev (dev) (Thu Feb 27 04:01:43 2025 -0800) on "macos_x64"

The original post is for Windows, but I was curious about the behaviour on macOS so I tested on that. I tried out the following code

Future<void> main() async =>
	print(await Directory('').exists());

This results in false. But the following code

Future<void> main() async =>
	print(await Directory('').absolute.exists());

Results in true, since it is just the current working directory path appended by the '' from the test code.

---

Should the empty path be consistently treated as the current working directory across all the API? So Directory('') would function like Directory('.'). In my experience, it is common for an empty path or absence of a path being specified to imply the current working directory.

[MindStudioOfficial]

Having the same issue.
App crashes without exception just Lost connection to device on windows. When calling File.exists on an empty path.

[√] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.29.2, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5608], locale de-DE)
[√] Windows Version (10 Pro 64-bit, 22H2, 2009)
[√] Chrome - develop for the web
[√] Visual Studio - develop Windows apps (Visual Studio Community 2022 17.14.0 Preview 2.0)
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