From 4a27fde36b7aac3d1e7688994a818bf1580d79de Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Serhiy Storchaka Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:53:29 +0300 Subject: [PATCH] gh-84548: Document Windows specific behavior of abspath() and realpath() (GH-155388) On Windows abspath() resolves a drive-relative path against the current directory of the specified drive, capitalizes the drive letter and strips trailing dots and spaces, so the result can differ from normpath(join(os.getcwd(), path)). realpath() returns the path in the case reported by the operating system. (cherry picked from commit 582a2d3ebafa993234218470e5fbb490197d89e6) Co-authored-by: Serhiy Storchaka --- Doc/library/os.path.rst | 15 +++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+) diff --git a/Doc/library/os.path.rst b/Doc/library/os.path.rst index 48e4734cad9579f..b0607f066a72135 100644 --- a/Doc/library/os.path.rst +++ b/Doc/library/os.path.rst @@ -59,6 +59,18 @@ the :mod:`glob` module.) Return a normalized absolutized version of the pathname *path*. On most platforms, this is equivalent to calling ``normpath(join(os.getcwd(), path))``. + On Windows the path is normalized by the operating system, + therefore the result can differ from ``normpath(join(os.getcwd(), path))``. + A drive-relative path is resolved against the current directory + of the specified drive, and the drive letter is capitalized. + Trailing dots and spaces are stripped. + For example:: + + >>> os.path.abspath('c:spam') + 'C:\\Temp\\spam' + >>> os.path.abspath('c:/temp/spam. . .') + 'c:\\temp\\spam' + .. seealso:: :func:`os.path.join` and :func:`os.path.normpath`. .. versionchanged:: 3.6 @@ -427,6 +439,9 @@ the :mod:`glob` module.) links encountered in the path (if they are supported by the operating system). On Windows, this function will also resolve MS-DOS (also called 8.3) style names such as ``C:\\PROGRA~1`` to ``C:\\Program Files``. + The returned path uses the case reported by the operating system, + which can differ from the case of *path*, + in particular the drive letter is capitalized. By default, the path is evaluated up to the first component that does not exist, is a symlink loop, or whose evaluation raises :exc:`OSError`.