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ExcludeTrailingPathDelimiter

Function ExcludeTrailingPathDelimiter( const S : string) : string

Example​

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

Usage​

ExcludeTrailingPathDelimiter removes one trailing platform path delimiter from a path string when present.

Parameters

NameTypeDescription
Sstring, constPath text to transform.

Returns

S without its final recognised delimiter, or S unchanged when it does not end in that delimiter.

Behaviour

  • 'C:\Folder\' becomes 'C:\Folder'.
  • 'C:\Folder' is unchanged.
  • An empty string is unchanged.
  • Repeated trailing delimiters are processed one per call: 'C:\Folder\\' becomes 'C:\Folder\'.

Errors

No normal path-content error is raised. Argument conversion or memory allocation can still fail through the normal runtime path.

Usage notes

Use this helper only when a consumer explicitly requires no trailing separator. Do not apply it to an unknown root path without checking the result.

Additional Technical Info​

ExcludeTrailingPathDelimiter removes one platform path delimiter from the end of S when it is present. It is a lexical string operation and does not inspect or modify the file system.

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

Implementation

Velox's wrapper calls installed System.SysUtils.ExcludeTrailingPathDelimiter. The routine copies S, calls the installed IsPathDelimiter for High(S), and shortens the result by one UTF-16 character only when that test succeeds.

Edge cases and quirks

  • On the current Windows build, PathDelim is backslash. A trailing forward slash is not removed.
  • A drive root such as 'C:\' becomes 'C:'. The routine does not preserve root semantics.
  • A lone '\' becomes an empty string. Review root and UNC-share inputs before applying it blindly.
  • No duplicate-separator collapse, ./.. resolution, drive expansion, validation or existence check occurs.
  • The historical “MBCS enabled” implementation detail remains in the RTL, although current script strings are Unicode.

Side effects

None.

Performance and concurrency

The result copy is linear in string length. There is no mutable shared state.

Related entries

External references

Created 2026-07-15