Copyright © 2010-2012 Christian Grün, published by the
This specification was published by the
This proposal provides a file system API for XPath. It defines extension functions to perform file system related operations such as listing, reading, or writing files or directories. It has been designed to be compatible with XQuery 1.0 and XSLT 2.0, as well as any other XPath 2.0 usage.
revisiondesc
The module defined by this document defines the functions and variables in the
namespace http://expath.org/ns/file
. In this document, the
file
prefix, when used, is bound to this namespace URI.
Error codes are defined in the namespace http://expath.org/ns/error
. In
this document, the err
prefix, when used, is bound to this namespace
URI.
All file paths are specified as strings, and are resolved against the current working directory. An implementation must accept absolute and relative UNIX/Linux and Windows paths as well as absolute file URIs. Some examples:
C:\Test Dir\my file.xml
: An absolute path on Windows
platforms.
/Test Dir/my file.xml
: An absolute path on UNIX-based
platforms.
C:\\\Test Dir//\\my file.xml
: An absolute path on Windows
platforms that tolerates an arbitrary number of slashes and backslashes.
my file.xml
: A relative path, pointing to a file in the current
working directory.
file:///C:/Test%20Dir/my%20file.xml
: An absolute file URI on
Windows platforms.
file:///Test%20Dir/my%20file.xml
: An absolute path on UNIX-based
platforms.
Before further processing, all paths must first be normalized to an implementation-defined representation (which usually is the representation of the underlying operating system).
Functions on File Properties (Section 2) and Input/Output (Section 3) are ·nondeterministic·, which means they are not guaranteed to perform the same actions and produce identical results from repeated calls. As such, a processor must ensure that these functions are not relocated or pre-evaluated and that its results are not cached when compiling and evaluating the query and serializing its results.
Error conditions are identified by a code (a QName
). When such an error
condition is reached during the execution of the function, a dynamic error is thrown,
with the corresponding error code (as if the standard XPath function
error
had been called).
Error codes are defined through the specification. If file operations raise
additional, errors, which may be specific to the underlying platform or programming
language, the generic error
For a list of specific errors see the "Summary of Error Conditions" section of this document.
file:exists
Tests if a path/URI is already used in the file system.
The function returns true()
if a file or a directory exists at the
location pointed by $path
.
file:is-dir
Tests if $path
points to a directory. On UNIX-based systems the root and
the volume roots are considered directories.
file:is-file
Tests if $path
points to a file.
file:last-modified
Returns xs:dateTime
representing the last modification time.
$path
does not
exist.file:size
Returns the byte size of a file as integer.
$path
does not
exist.$path
points to a
directory.file:append
Appends a sequence of items to a file. If the file pointed by $file
does
not exist, a new file will be created.
$params
controls the way the $items
items are serialized.
The semantics of $params
is the same as for the
fn:serialize
function in output:serialization-parameters
element whose format is defined in
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.file:append-text
Appends a string to a file. If the file pointed by $file
does not exist,
a new file will be created.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:append-text-lines
Appends a sequence of strings to a file, each followed by the system-dependent
newline character. If the file pointed by $file
does not exist, a new
file will be created.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:append-binary
Appends a Base64 item as binary to a file. If the file pointed by $file
does not exist, a new file will be created.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.file:copy
Copies a file or a directory given a source and a target path/URI. The following
cases may occur if $source
points to a file:
$target
does not exist, it will be created.$target
is a file, it will be overwritten.$target
is a directory, the file will be created in that
directory with the name of the source file. If a file already exists, it will be
overwritten.The following cases may occur if $source
points to a directory:
$target
does not exist, it will be created as directory, and all
files of the source directory are copied to this directory with their existing
local names.$target
is a directory, all files are copied from the source
into the target directory. If a file already exists, it will be overwritten.Other cases will raise one of the errors listed below.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful. If an error occurs during the operation, no rollback to the original state will be possible
$source
path does not
exist.$source
points to a
directory and $target
points to an existing file.$source
does not exist.$source
points to a file
and $target
points to a directory, in which a subdirectory exists
with the name of the source file.file:create-dir
Creates a directory, or does nothing if the directory already exists. The operation will create all non-existing parent directories.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
file:delete
Deletes a file or a directory from the file system.
If the optional parameter $recursive
is set to true()
,
sub-directories will be deleted as well.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$path
does not
exist.$file
points to a
non-empty directory.file:list
Lists all files and directories in a given directory. The order of the items in the
resulting sequence is not defined. The "." and ".." items are never returned. The
returned paths are relative to the provided directory $dir
.
If the optional parameter $recursive
is set to true()
, all
directories and files will be returned that are found while recursively traversing
the given directory.
The optional $pattern
parameter defines a name pattern in the glob
syntax. If this is provided, only the paths of the files and directories whose names
are matching the pattern will be returned.
An implementation must support at least the following glob syntax for the pattern:
*
for matching any number of unknown characters and?
for matching one unknown character.
$dir
does not point to an
existing directory.file:move
Moves a file or a directory given a source and a target path/URI. The following cases
may occur if $source
points to a file:
$target
does not exist, it will be created.$target
is a file, it will be overwritten.$target
is a directory, the file will be created in that
directory with the name of the source file. If a file already exists, it will be
overwritten.The following cases may occur if $source
points to a directory:
$target
does not exist, it will be created as directory, and all
files of the source directory are moved to this directory with their existing
local names.$target
is a directory, all files are moved from the source into
the target directory. If a file already exists, it will be overwritten.Other cases will raise one of the errors listed below.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful. If an error occurs during the operation, no rollback to the original state will be possible
$source
path does not
exist.$source
points to a
directory and $target
points to an existing file.$source
does not exist.$source
points to a file
and $target
points to a directory, in which a subdirectory exists
with the name of the source file.file:read-binary
Returns the content of a file in its Base64 representation.
$file
does not
exist.$file
points to a
directory.file:read-text
Returns the content of a file in its string representation.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
$file
does not
exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:read-text-lines
Returns the contents of a file as a sequence of strings, separated at newline boundaries.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
The newline handling is the same as for the fn:unparsed-text-lines
function in
$file
does not
exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:write
Writes a sequence of items to a file.
If $file
already exists, it will be overwritten.
$params
controls the way the $items
items are serialized.
The semantics of $params
is the same as for the
fn:serialize
function in output:serialization-parameters
element whose format is defined in
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.file:write-text
Writes a strings to a file. If $file
already exists, it will be
overwritten.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:write-text-lines
Writes a sequence of strings to a file, each followed by the system-dependent newline
character. If $file
already exists, it will be overwritten.
The optional parameter $encoding
, if not provided, is considered to be
UTF-8
.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.$encoding
is invalid or
not supported by the implementation.file:write-binary
Writes a Base64 items as binary to a file. If $file
already exists, it
will be overwritten.
The function returns the empty sequence if the operation is successful.
$file
does not exist.$file
points to a
directory.None of the functions in this section performs any check regarding the existence of the received or returned paths.
file:base-name
Returns the last component from $path
, deleting any trailing directory
separators. If $path
consists entirely of directory separator, the empty
string is returned. If $path
is the empty string, the string
"."
is returned, signifying the current working directory.
If $suffix
is present, it will be trimmed from the end of the result.
This can be used to eliminate file extensions.
No path existence check is made.
file:dir-name
This function returns a string denoting the parent directory of $path
.
Any trailing directory separators are not counted as part of the directory name. If
the specified string is empty or contains no directory separators, "."
is returned, signifying the current directory.
No path existence check is made.
file:path-to-native
Transforms a URI, an absolute path, or relative path to a canonical, system-dependent path representation. A canonical path is both absolute and unique and thus contains no redirections such as references to parent directories or symbolic links.
No path existence check is made.
file:path-to-uri
Transforms a file system path into a URI with the file://
scheme. If the
path is relative, it is first resolved against the current working directory.
No path existence check is made.
file:resolve-path
Transforms a relative path into an absolute operating system path by resolving it against the current working directory.
No path existence check is made.
file:dir-separator
Returns the value of the operating system specific directory separator, which usually
is /
on UNIX-based systems and \
on Windows systems.
file:path-separator
Returns the value of the operating system specific path separator, which usually is
:
on UNIX-based systems and ;
on Windows systems.
file:line-separator
Returns the value of the operating system specific line separator, which usually is
on UNIX-based systems,
on
Windows systems and
on Mac systems.