Is there a difference between joinpath and the / operator in the pathlib module? The documentation doesn't ever compare the two methods. Essentially are there any cases where these two are different?
Example:
from pathlib import Path
foo = Path("some_path")
foo_bar_operator = foo / "bar"
foo_bar_joinpath = foo.joinpath("bar")
foo_bar_operator == foo_bar_joinpath
# Returns: True
There is no difference. The source code confirms this:
def joinpath(self, *args):
"""Combine this path with one or several arguments, and return a
new path representing either a subpath (if all arguments are relative
paths) or a totally different path (if one of the arguments is
anchored).
"""
return self._make_child(args)
def __truediv__(self, key):
try:
return self._make_child((key,))
except TypeError:
return NotImplemented
Note you can pass multiple arguments to joinpath e.g. a.joinpath(b, c, d). The equivalent for / would be a / b / c / d.
Path object for every intermediary path while joinpath produces the final path in one go, making it significantly faster for joining long paths. It doesn't usually matter unless you are building millions of long paths and you want to save a microsecond or two on each.