Please give the trailing slash back to os.tmpdir()

Please revert the commit b57cc51

Since we can get any string (like "/oh/my/xxx/////"), from the environment, why bother to remove the trailing slash? For consistency between __dirname and os.tmpdir() #715 #747 ??

[mscdex]

Why not use path.join() or similar path methods?

$ iojs
> path.join('/oh/my/xxx/////', 'bar')
'/oh/my/xxx/bar'

@mscdex Sorry, maybe I should say it more clearly.

I'm asking why you think it is a necessary breaking change. Just removing one trailing slash won't complete the “consistency” between __dirname and os.tmpdir(), because the user environment may give us some random strings, like "///oh///my///xxx//..//".

And here is another question: Will making os.tmpdir() “consistent” with __dirname encourage people to write unsafe code? If the string "/" or "\\" comes from the user environment (though hardly possible), gets trimmed into "", what directory does it represent (and on what platform)? Should the api doc have a note for this?

EDIT: Added "\\" to the last paragraph.

[rlidwka]

If the string "/" comes from the user environment (though hardly possible), gets trimmed into "", what directory does it represent (and on what platform)?

That's true actually:

$ TEMP=/ ~/io.js/iojs  -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify(require("os").tmpdir()))'
""

/ should not be removed if it's the only character there.

dirname works correctly in that case:

$ cat /test.js
console.log(__dirname)
$ ~/io.js/iojs /test.js
/

@rlidwka I've updated my previous comment. Please think about backslash \ too.

[Fishrock123]

cc @tellnes

[brendanashworth]

Perhaps semver-major changes aren't looked at hard enough... maybe we should introduce a hard minimum amount of reviewers for a major change, say 3.

[tellnes]

We could change it so we remove all trailing slashes and keep one if there is no other characters there?

[benjamingr]

@tellnes Yeah, that sounds like a solid workaround.

@jakwings would that satisfy you? I realize this is a breaking change and that you'd have to normalize it through the library, but isn't that a one-time thing and the new behavior makes more sense?

@beanieboi No. I don't care the trailing slash and will not use such a boring API any more.

I must point out that this is not only a severe problem for the root path "/" or a directory named "\\" at the root dir, but also for every path ended with backslash \ on Linux. So if you insist on removing the trailing slash, you must get the proper path separator first.

[tellnes]

So remove trailing path.sep then, but keep one if there is no other characters?

@tellnes I have no more opinions on how to deal with those separators. At least, use the correct separator for different platforms. This is a stable API, I hope you all take it more seriously.