path (extname, parse) cannot handle extension correctly for directory

[francisl]

• Version: v5.10.1
• Platform: Darwin Kernel Version 15.3.0
• Subsystem: path

On OS X and Linux its perfectly legal to use dot '.' in directory name.
Currently path.extname and path.parse handle . in directory name as a file extension.

e.g.

ext.extname('/Users/Bob.Dev')
> '.Dev'

ext.parse('/Users/John.Smith')
> { root: '/',
  dir: '/Users',
  base: 'Bob.Dev',
  ext: '.Dev',
  name: 'Bob' }

I understand that path don't do any validation. But this behavior is confusing an error prone.

[jasnell]

the challenge here is that the path module does not know that it's parsing a directory vs. a file. There's really nothing that can be done here other than perhaps documenting the limitation. /cc @nodejs/documentation

[mscdex]

This is why in general it's typically a good idea to append a trailing path separator to indicate a directory. However that won't help with parsing this path (which could possibly be viewed as a bug).

[francisl]

if you put a slash at the end, you will have the same results.

[mscdex]

Right, I noted that. It could perhaps be viewed as a bug in that case shrug.

[jasnell]

Actually, that does sound like a bug. /foo/bar/ and /foo/bar are two different paths and yet path.parse returns the same results for each. (quick test confirms that this is the way it works in v4 also... sigh... definitely should get that documented then)