posixpathsplitdrive

posixpathsplitdrive refers to the splitdrive function in Python's posixpath module, which provides POSIX-style path operations as part of the standard library. The posixpath module implements common path manipulation functions for POSIX-compatible file systems and is used by os.path on POSIX platforms.

Behavior and purpose

splitdrive is designed to split a pathname into two parts: a drive component and the remainder of the path. On POSIX systems, there is no concept of a drive letter or drive volume, so splitdrive always returns a pair where the drive part is an empty string and the tail part is the original path. This behavior is intentional to maintain a consistent API with the Windows-specific path module (ntpath) for cross-platform code.

Usage

The function takes a single argument, the path string, and returns a tuple (drive, path). For POSIX paths, drive will be '', and path will be unchanged. This function is mainly useful for code that is written to be cross-platform and expects a splitdrive interface, even if the POSIX variant never yields a non-empty drive.

Relation to other path functions

splitdrive is part of the same family as other path manipulation utilities in posixpath, such as join, split, and normpath. It complements cross-platform code by providing a uniform API across platforms. On POSIX systems, the function’s effect is effectively a no-op regarding the tail, aside from returning it in the second element of the tuple.

Examples

- posixpath.splitdrive('/usr/local/bin') returns ('', '/usr/local/bin')

- posixpath.splitdrive('relative/path') returns ('', 'relative/path')

Since there is no drive concept in POSIX, neither absolute nor relative paths gain a drive prefix from this function.