gh-140971: Doc: Clarify pathlib.Path("") behavior #140993
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terryjreedy
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Nov 4, 2025
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| An empty string in *pathsegments* also refers to the current directory. | ||
| This means that ``PurePath("")`` is equivalent to ``PurePath(".")``, | ||
| and consequently ``Path("").exists()`` will always return ``True``. This | ||
| differs from ``os.path.exists("")``, which returns ``False``. | ||
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| >>> PurePath("") | ||
| PurePosixPath('.') |
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I think the new text should be folded into the previous 4 lines. The result would then be:
When pathsegments is empty or a single empty string, the current directory is assumed::
>>> PurePath(), PurePath('')
(PurePosixPath('.'), PurePosixPath('.'))
The boolean value of either expression is True.
This differs from os.path.exists(""), which returns False.
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Fixes #140971
This PR clarifies the behavior of
pathlib.Path("")in the documentation.The current behavior, where
pathlib.Path("").exists()returnsTrue, is intentional butcan be confusing because it differs from
os.path.exists(""), which returnsFalse.This change adds a note to the
PurePathconstructor documentation to explain that an empty string path segment refers to the current directory. This makes the behavior explicit to users and helps prevent further confusion.📚 Documentation preview 📚: https://cpython-previews--140993.org.readthedocs.build/