posixpath

Posixpath is a module in Python's standard library that implements path manipulation functions using POSIX semantics. It provides the underlying implementation for POSIX-style path handling, and on POSIX platforms the os.path module is an alias of posixpath.

The module exposes functions for joining, splitting, and normalizing path strings, as well as utilities to inspect path components. Typical operations include joining components into a single path, splitting a path into directory and basename, extracting the file extension, and normalizing sequences such as redundant slashes and dot-dot components. Many functions operate on POSIX paths regardless of the underlying filesystem.

POSIX semantics assume '/' as the path separator, with no drive letters and case-sensitive paths. This contrasts with Windows-specific modules such as ntpath. For portable code, it is common to use the top-level os.path interface, which selects posixpath on POSIX systems and ntpath on Windows. If you specifically need POSIX behavior on any platform, you can import posixpath directly.

Example: posixpath.join('/usr', 'local', 'bin') yields '/usr/local/bin'. posixpath.normpath('a/./b/../c') yields 'a/c'.

Posixpath is part of the Python standard library and is implemented in Python itself, making it available without external dependencies. It is typically used when a developer wants explicit POSIX-style path handling or when writing cross-platform code that must conform to POSIX path rules.