path.parse: result differs between Windows and macOS for Windows-style paths

[stelcheck]

• Version: 6.7
• Platform: Windows 10, macOS
• Subsystem: path

On macOS:

> path.parse('/i/love/node')
{ root: '/', dir: '/i/love', base: 'node', ext: '', name: 'node' }
> path.parse('C:\\i\\love\\node')
{ root: '',
  dir: '',
  base: 'C:\\i\\love\\node',
  ext: '',
  name: 'C:\\i\\love\\node' }

On Windows:

> path.parse('/i/love/node')
{ root: '/', dir: '/i/love', base: 'node', ext: '', name: 'node' }
> path.parse('C:\\i\\love\\node')
{ root: 'C:\\',
  dir: 'C:\\i\\love',
  base: 'node',
  ext: '',
  name: 'node' }

While the Linux-style path is correctly and equally processed across both platform, the Windows path is not.

[Trott]

On OS X, the path is parsed as if it is a POSIX file name because filenames of the format C:\stuff\otherstuff are valid. Note that it's a single file in that case and the \ characters are part of the filename, not delimiters for parts of the path.

$ touch C:\\i\\love\\node
$ ls C\:\\i\\love\\node 
C:\i\love\node`
$

\ is a legitimate character in a filename (although you have to escape it to use it):

$ touch \\
$ ls \\
\
$ 

If you know you want Windows behavior, you can use path.win32.parse().

[stelcheck]

Thank you for the clarification!