Skip to main content

EnsureCorrectPathDelimiter

Function EnsureCorrectPathDelimiter( const S : string) : string

Example​

procedure ScriptEvent(var Value: variant);
begin
  Value := EnsureCorrectPathDelimiter('C:/Fictional/Inbound');
  // C:\Fictional\Inbound\
end;

Usage​

EnsureCorrectPathDelimiter normalises slash direction from a leading web-path heuristic and ensures a trailing delimiter.

Parameters

NameTypeDescription
Sstring, constWhole path-like string to transform.

Returns

'' for empty input. Otherwise, a slash-normalised string ending in / when the original begins with / or case-insensitive 'http'; all other input is normalised to backslashes and ends in \.

Behaviour

  • 'C:/Folder/File' becomes 'C:\Folder\File\'.
  • '/api\orders' becomes '/api/orders/'.
  • 'https:\\example.test\api' starts with http, so it becomes 'https://example.test/api/'.
  • 'relative/path' does not begin / or http, so it becomes 'relative\path\'.
  • Existing repeated separators are preserved; only slash direction is changed.

Errors

There is no normal content-dependent exception. Argument conversion and allocation failures can propagate.

Usage notes

Use only when this exact Velox heuristic matches the consumer's contract. For a known Windows path, prefer explicit Windows handling; for a URL, parse and modify the URL path rather than the complete string.

Additional Technical Info​

EnsureCorrectPathDelimiter chooses web-style or Windows-style separators from the beginning of S, replaces every separator of the other kind, and ensures one selected delimiter at the end. It is a Velox string heuristic, not a path or URL parser.

The example is source-reviewed and was not executed by the documentation workflow.

Implementation

The function tests S.StartsWith('/') case-sensitively or S.StartsWith('http', True) case-insensitively. The web branch calls Delphi StringReplace(S, '\', '/', [rfReplaceAll]); the other branch replaces every / with \. It then calls IncludeCorrectPathDelimeter, which applies the same leading heuristic and appends the selected delimiter when absent.

Edge cases and quirks

  • The web test accepts any case-insensitive prefix 'http', including 'httpstuff'; it does not require http:// or https://.
  • A URL is treated as one undifferentiated string. A missing trailing delimiter is appended after a query or fragment, so https://host/path?x=1 becomes https://host/path?x=1/. Parse structured URLs before modifying their path component.
  • The function does not validate a scheme, host, drive, UNC share, rootedness, traversal segment or illegal character.
  • . and .. are not resolved, duplicate separators are not collapsed, and environment/configuration tokens are not expanded.
  • A Windows path deliberately beginning / is classified as web-style.

Side effects

None.

Performance and concurrency

The whole input can be scanned and copied by StringReplace, making work linear in length. There is no mutable shared state.

Related entries

External references

Created 2026-07-15