Isn't this / ?
Why is there a constant for it? It's not like it can change, right?
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98
PATH_SEPARATOR is the character used to separate many paths in a unique string (like include_path in php.ini).
Its value is ':' on a UNIX system and ';' on a Windows system.
What you're talking about ('/' on UNIX and '\' on Windows) is the DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR constant.
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As your original question states: "Why is there a PATH_SEPARATOR constant?", windows uses a semi-colon ;, while other systems use a colon :
However I think you've mistaken PATH_SEPARATOR with DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR
PATH_SEPARATOR delimits multiple paths in the same string. For example when used in windows environment variables.
c:\path\to\a;c:\path\to\b
DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR separates the directories within the path: In Windows
\
In other systems
/
As mentioned by others, windows also accepts /
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Open up a command console and try `cd /valid/path/` in windows. I think you'll find that this works – Ben Rowe Jan 19 '13 at 22:20
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Try `cd /`, and you'll see that it doesn't. – Karoly Horvath Jan 20 '13 at 10:36
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@KarolyHorvath, I just did on 3 windows 7 machines. Worked without any problems. – Ben Rowe Jan 21 '13 at 22:09
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what's the point of trying *three* machines with the *same* version? Try a different version... – Karoly Horvath Jan 22 '13 at 09:38
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@KarolyHorvath: Windows does support a mixture of forward slashes and backslashes, at the API level. See, for example: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363858%28v=vs.85%29.aspx "lpFileName [in]: The name of the file or device to be created or opened. You may use either forward slashes (/) or backslashes (\\) in this name." – jmc Feb 11 '13 at 15:24
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1That's exactly the problem - it supports it at the API level. Try `system("dir /mydirectory")` - it will complain, because it thinks that's a parameter to the `dir` command. So although PHP supports `/`, you can easily end up with weird problems because you assumed it's going to work *everywhere*. I just wanted to point out this. – Karoly Horvath Feb 11 '13 at 15:47
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It can. It is \ in Windows and / in Linux (and prettymuch everywhere else), although modern versions of Windows do accept / as a separator.
Ooops this is about the DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR constant.
PATH_SEPARATOR is indeed the constant to separate various paths as seen in PéCés answer.
