Operating System

This page documents the system module.

General concepts

This module lets you interact with the operating system, and perform operations such as checking whether a file or directory exists, extracting parts of a file name, etc.

Functions

system.get_user_directory()

Get the user’s directory (read only).

system.get_current_directory()

Get or set the current directory.

system.current_directory = "/home/julien/Documents"
print(system.current_directory)
system.get_full_path(relative_path)

Turn a relative path into an absolute path.

system.get_path_separator()

Get the native path separator on the current platform. This is \\ on Windows and / on other platforms.

system.get_temp_directory()

Get the name of a directory where temporary files can be written.

system.get_temp_name()

Return the name of a temporary file which is guaranteed to be unique.

system.get_base_name(path as String)

Return the file name part of path, stripping all directories.

print get_base_name("/home/hodor/test.txt") # prints "test.txt"
system.create_directory(path as String)

Create a new directory. If the directory could not be created, an error is thrown.

system.remove_directory(path as String)

Remove a directory, which must be empty. If the directory could not be removed, an error is thrown.

system.remove_directory(path as String, recursive as Boolean)

Remove a directory. If recursive is true, the content is removed resurively; otherwise, the directory is assumed to be empty. If the directory could not be removed, an error is thrown.

system.remove_file(path as String)

Remove a file. If the file could not be removed, an error is thrown.

system.remove_path(path as String)

Remove path, which can be either a file or a directory. If path could not be removed, an error is thrown.

system.list_directory(path as String)

Return a table containing the files in path. Hidden files are not included.

system.list_directory(path as String, include_hidden as Boolean)

Return a table containing the files in path. If include_hidden is true, hidden files are included. If it is false or is missing, hidden files are not included.

system.exists(path as String)

Return true if the path exists, false otherwise.

system.is_document(path as String)

Return true if path exists and is a file, false otherwise.

system.is_directory(path as String)

Return true if path exists and is a directory, false otherwise.

system.clear_directory(path as String)

Empty the content of a directory.

system.get_extension(path as String)

Get the file’s extension, starting with a dot.

system.strip_extension(path as String)

Return path without extension.

system.split_extension(path as String)

Return a table whose first element is path with the extension removed, and whose second element is the extension.

system.join_path(s1 as String, s2 as String)

Concatenate s1 and s2 using the native path separator and returns the resulting path name.

system.genericize(path as String)

On Windows, this function converts the native path separator to the generic separator /. On platforms that use the generic separator, it does nothing.

system.nativize(path as String)

On Windows, this function converts the generic path separator to the native separator \\. On platforms that use the generic separator, it does nothing.

system.rename(old_name as String, new_name as String)

Renames a file. If the file could not be renamed, an error is raised.