Evaluate switching to `std::path::absolute()` once that method is stabilized

[simu]

Context

Currently, we're using a custom to_lexical_absolute() function (copied from https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/path-to-lexical-absolute/14940) to transform relative paths to their absolute counterparts without following symlinks, cf.

reclass-rs/src/lib.rs

Lines 47 to 69 in 1780735

	/// Converts `p` to an absolute path, but doesn't resolve symlinks. The function does normalize the
	/// path by resolving any `.` and `..` components which are present.
	///
	/// Copied from https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/path-to-lexical-absolute/14940.
	fn to_lexical_absolute(p: &Path) -> Result<PathBuf> {
	let mut absolute = if p.is_absolute() {
	PathBuf::new()
	} else {
	std::env::current_dir()?
	};
	for component in p.components() {
	match component {
	Component::CurDir => { /* do nothing for `.` components */ }
	Component::ParentDir => {
	// pop the last element that we added for `..` components
	absolute.pop();
	}
	// just push the component for any other component
	component => absolute.push(component.as_os_str()),
	}
	}
	Ok(absolute)
	}

There's discussions around stabilizing std::path::absolute() which is currently available as an unstable feature in nightly Rust. We should check if we can replace our custom to_lexical_absolute() with this method once it's stabilized.

Alternatives

Do nothing and keep maintaining a function that could be replaced by a stdlib method.

[simu]

Looks like std::path::absolute() (which will be stabilized soon) will not resolve /../ segments (apparently in accordance with POSIX path resolution semantics, cf. https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/path/fn.absolute.html. However, this makes the function unsuitable for our usecase.

[ssokolow]

apparently in accordance with POSIX path resolution semantics

% mkdir example
% cd example
% mkdir foo
% touch foo/foo{1..3}
% mkdir bar
% touch bar/bar{1..3}
% mkdir bar/foo
% ls bar/foo/..
bar1  bar2  bar3  foo
% rmdir bar/foo
% ln -s ../foo bar/foo
% ls bar/foo/..
bar  foo

TL;DR: You can't correctly resolve /../ segments without accessing the filesystem because "POSIX path resolution semantics" say its meaning varies depending on the presence or absence of symlinks and that's what the kernel implemented.

[simu]

We explicitly don't want to resolve leaf symlinks when determining the name of reclass entities. We already resolve non-leaf symlinks when walking the reclass inventory directory tree, cf.

reclass-rs/src/lib.rs

Lines 121 to 193 in 7b34c22

	fn walk_entity_dir(
	kind: &EntityKind,
	root: &str,
	entity_map: &mut HashMap<String, EntityInfo>,
	max_depth: usize,
	) -> Result<()> {
	let entity_root = to_lexical_absolute(&PathBuf::from(root))?;
	// We need to follow symlinks when walking the root directory, so that inventories which
	// contain symlinked directories are loaded correctly.
	for entry in WalkDir::new(root).max_depth(max_depth).follow_links(true) {
	let entry = entry?;
	// We use `entry.path()` here to get the symlink name for symlinked files.
	let ext = if let Some(ext) = entry.path().extension() {
	ext.to_str()
	} else {
	None
	};
	if ext.is_some() && SUPPORTED_YAML_EXTS.contains(&ext.unwrap()) {
	// it's an entity (class or node), process it
	let abspath = to_lexical_absolute(entry.path())?;
	let relpath = abspath.strip_prefix(&entity_root)?;
	let cls = relpath.with_extension("");
	let (cls, loc) = if cls.ends_with("init") {
	// treat `foo/init.yml` as contents for class `foo`
	let cls = cls
	.parent()
	.ok_or(anyhow!(
	"Failed to normalize entity {}",
	entry.path().display()
	))?
	.to_owned();
	// here, unwrap can't panic since we otherwise would have already returned an error
	// in the previous statement.
	let loc = relpath.parent().unwrap();
	// For `init.ya?ml` classes, the location is parent directory of the directory
	// holding the class file.
	(cls, loc.parent().unwrap_or(Path::new("")))
	} else {
	// For normal classes, the location is the directory holding the class file.
	(cls, relpath.parent().unwrap_or(Path::new("")))
	};
	let cls = cls.to_str().ok_or(anyhow!(
	"Failed to normalize entity {}",
	entry.path().display()
	))?;
	let (cls, loc) = if kind == &EntityKind::Node && max_depth > 1 && cls.starts_with('_') {
	// special case node paths starting with _ for compose-node-name
	(
	cls.split(MAIN_SEPARATOR).last().ok_or(anyhow!(
	"Can't shorten node name for {}",
	entry.path().display()
	))?,
	Path::new(""),
	)
	} else {
	(cls, loc)
	};
	let cls = cls.replace(MAIN_SEPARATOR, ".");
	if let Some(prev) = entity_map.get(&cls) {
	return err_duplicate_entity(kind, root, relpath, &cls, &prev.path);
	}
	entity_map.insert(
	cls,
	EntityInfo {
	path: relpath.to_path_buf(),
	loc: PathBuf::from(loc),
	},
	);
	}
	}
	Ok(())
	}