NAME

       Tcl_TranslateFileName - convert file name to native form and replace tilde with home directory

SYNOPSIS

       #include <tcl.h>

       char *
       Tcl_TranslateFileName(interp, name, bufferPtr)

ARGUMENTS

       Tcl_Interp *interp (in)              Interpreter in which to report an error, if any.

       const char *name (in)                File name, which may start with a “~”.

       Tcl_DString *bufferPtr (in/out)      If  needed,  this dynamic string is used to store the new file name.
                                            At the time of the call it should be  uninitialized  or  free.   The
                                            caller  must  eventually  call  Tcl_DStringFree  to free up anything
                                            stored here.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION

       This utility procedure translates a file name to a platform-specific form which, after being converted to
       the appropriate encoding, is suitable for passing to the  local  operating  system.   In  particular,  it
       converts network names into native form and does tilde substitution.

       However,  with  the advent of the newer Tcl_FSGetNormalizedPath and Tcl_GetNativePath, there is no longer
       any need to use this procedure.  In particular, Tcl_GetNativePath performs all the necessary  translation
       and  encoding  conversion,  is virtual-filesystem aware, and caches the native result for faster repeated
       calls.  Finally Tcl_GetNativePath does not require you to free anything afterwards.

       If Tcl_TranslateFileName has to do tilde substitution or translate the name  then  it  uses  the  dynamic
       string at *bufferPtr to hold the new string it generates.  After Tcl_TranslateFileName returns a non-NULL
       result,  the  caller must eventually invoke Tcl_DStringFree to free any information placed in *bufferPtr.
       The  caller  need  not  know  whether  or   not   Tcl_TranslateFileName   actually   used   the   string;
       Tcl_TranslateFileName  initializes  *bufferPtr even if it does not use it, so the call to Tcl_DStringFree
       will be safe in either case.

       If an error occurs (e.g. because there was no user by the given name) then NULL is returned and an  error
       message  will be left in the interpreter's result.  When an error occurs, Tcl_TranslateFileName frees the
       dynamic string itself so that the caller need not call Tcl_DStringFree.

       The caller is responsible for making sure that the interpreter's result has its default empty value  when
       Tcl_TranslateFileName is invoked.

SEE ALSO

       filename

KEYWORDS

       file name, home directory, tilde, translate, user

Tcl                                                    8.1                           Tcl_TranslateFileName(3tcl)