How can I convert a windows path to posix path using node path

Question

I'm developing on windows, but need to know how to convert a windows path (with backslashes \) into a POSIX path with forward slashes (/)?

My goal is to convert C:\repos\vue-t\tests\views\index\home.vue to C:/repos/vue-t/tests/views/index/home.vue

so I can use it in an import on a file I'm writing to the disk

const appImport = `
import Vue from "vue"
import App from '${path}'

function createApp (data) {
    const app = new Vue({
        data,
        render: h => h(App)
    })
    return app
}`

//this string is then written to the disk as a file

I'd prefer not to .replace(/\\/g, '/') the string, and would rather prefer to use a require('path') function.

Answer 1

Given that all the other answers rely on installing (either way too large, or way too small) third party modules: this can also be done as a one-liner for relative paths (which you should be using 99.999% of the time already anyway) using Node's standard library path module, and more specifically, taking advantage of its dedicated path.posix and path.win32 namespaced properties/functions (introduced all the way back in Node v0.11):

import path from "path"; // or in legacy cjs: const path = require("path")

// Split on whatever is "this OS's path separator",
// then explicitly join with posix or windows separators:

const definitelyPosix = somePathString.split(path.sep).join(path.posix.sep);
const definitelyWindows = somePathString.split(path.sep).join(path.win32.sep);

This will convert your path to POSIX (or Windows) format irrespective of whether you're already on a POSIX (or Windows) compliant platform, without needing any kind of external dependency.

Or, if you don't even care about which OS you're in:

import path from "path";

const { platform } = process;
const locale = path[platform === `win32` ? `win32` : `posix`];

...

const localePath = somepath.split(path.sep).join(locale.sep);

And of course, be aware that paths with / in them have always been valid paths in Windows, ever since the very first windows 1.0 days. So there's not a lot of value in turning Posix paths into Windows paths (manually, at least. If you need absolute paths, Posix and Windows differ drastically in how those are exposed, of course, but pretty much any time you need an absolute path, that's a config value and you should be using .env files anyway)

Answer 2

Slash converts windows backslash paths to Unix paths

Usage:

const path = require('path');
const slash = require('slash');

const str = path.join('foo', 'bar');

slash(str);
// Unix    => foo/bar
// Windows => foo/bar

Answer 3

There is node package called upath will convert windows path into unix.

upath = require('upath');

or

import * as upath from 'upath';

upath.toUnix(destination_path)

Answer 4

For those looking for an answer that doesn't depend on Node.js

One Liner (no 3rd party library)

//
// one-liner
//
let convertPath = (windowsPath) => windowsPath.replace(/^\\\\\?\\/,"").replace(/\\/g,'\/').replace(/\/\/+/g,'\/')

//
// usage
//
convertPath("C:\\repos\\vue-t\\tests\\views\\index\\home.vue")
// >>> "C:/repos/vue-t/tests/views/index/home.vue"

//
// multi-liner (commented and compatible with really old javascript versions)
//
function convertPath(windowsPath) {
    // handle the edge-case of Window's long file names
    // See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file#short-vs-long-names
    windowsPath = windowsPath.replace(/^\\\\\?\\/,"");

    // convert the separators, valid since both \ and / can't be in a windows filename
    windowsPath = windowsPath.replace(/\\/g,'\/');

    // compress any // or /// to be just /, which is a safe oper under POSIX
    // and prevents accidental errors caused by manually doing path1+path2
    windowsPath = windowsPath.replace(/\/\/+/g,'\/');

    return windowsPath;
};

// dont want the C: to be inluded? here's a one-liner for that too
let convertPath = (windowsPath) => windowsPath.replace(/^\\\\\?\\/,"").replace(/(?:^C:)?\\/g,'\/').replace(/\/\/+/g,'\/')

Normally I import libraries. However, I went and read the source code for both slash and upath. The functions were not particularly up to date, and incredibly small at the time I checked. In fact, this one liner actually handles more cases than the slash library. Not everyone is looking for this kind of solution, but for those that are, here it is. By coincidence this has the fastest runtime of all the current answers.

Answer 5

Just use default lib as:

const {direname, resolve, basename}= require('path').posix;

or

import {posix} from 'path';
const {direname, resolve, basename}= posix;

Answer 6

I was looking for something similar, but a little more universal especially to include drives in the absolute path. Thus if you work with e.g. git-bash or WSL usually drives are mapped by default as letters from root / (git-bash) or /mnt (WSL). So here is a regex that does the job for me

// For git-bash Windows drives are mounted in the root like /C/ /D/ etc.
const toGitBashPosixPath = (windowsPath) => windowsPath.replace(/^(\w):|\\+/g,'/$1');

console.log(toGitBashPosixPath('c:\\\\\\project\\file.x')); // messy Windows path
console.log(toGitBashPosixPath('c:\\project\\file.x')); // regular Windows path
console.log(toGitBashPosixPath('c:/project/file.x')); // slash path acceptable by Windows
console.log(toGitBashPosixPath('project\\file.x'));// relative Windows path
console.log(toGitBashPosixPath('.\\project\\file.x'));// another relative Windows path

// For WSL Windows drives are mounted by default next to /mnt like /mnt/C/ /mnt/D/ etc.
const toWSLPosixPath = (windowsPath) => windowsPath.replace(/^(\w):|\\+/g,'/$1').replace(/^\//g,'/mnt/');
console.log(toWSLPosixPath('c:\\project\\file.x'))

Hopefully this will help someone.

Answer 7

const winPath = 'C:\\repos\\vue-t\\tests\\views\\index\\home.vue'
const posixPath = winPath.replace(/\\/g, '/').slice(2)
// Now posixPath = '/repos/vue-t/tests/views/index/home.vue'