05-C02P01

C02P01 - Reduce file path

A file path in a Unix-like operating system looks like this:

/home/user/courses/Programming101-Python/week01

We start from the root - / and we navigate to the destination folder.

But there is a problem - if we have .. and . in our file path, it's not clear where we are going to end up.

• .. means to go back one directory.
• . means to stay in the same directory.
• we can have more then one / between the directories - /home//code.

So for example:

/home//user/courses/./Programming101-Python/week01/../

reduces to

/home/user/courses/Programming101-Python

Implement a function, called reduce_file_path(path) which takes a string and returns the reduced version of the path.

• Every .. means that we have to go one directory back.
• Every . means that we are staying in the same directory.
• Every extra / is unnecessary.
• Always remove the last /.

Avoid using a standard library for dealing with Unix paths.

Signature

def reduce_file_path(path):
    pass

Examples

reduce_file_path("/") == "/"
reduce_file_path("/srv/../") == "/"
reduce_file_path("/srv/www/htdocs/wtf/") == "/srv/www/htdocs/wtf"
reduce_file_path("/srv/www/htdocs/wtf") == "/srv/www/htdocs/wtf"
reduce_file_path("/srv/./././././") == "/srv"
reduce_file_path("/etc//wtf/") == "/etc/wtf"
reduce_file_path("/etc/../etc/../etc/../") == "/"
reduce_file_path("//////////////") == "/"
reduce_file_path("/../") == "/"