What is the naming standard for path components?

Question

I keep getting myself in knots when I am manipulating paths and file names because I don’t follow a naming standard for path components.

Consider the following toy pr

Answer 1

A) foo

filename without extension

B) foo.src

filename

C) src

extension without dot

D) .src

extension

E) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\ - i.e. the top of the tree.

[absolute] (working | current | active | root) directory path

F) Widget\foo.src - i.e. the path from the top of the tree to the leaf.

relative file path

G) Widget - i.e. one node of the tree.

directory name

H) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\ - i.e. the name of the folder

[absolute] directory path

I) C:\users\OddThinking\Documents\My Source\Widget\foo.src

[absolute] file path

"Filename" is a word, so generally we should probably use "filename" and not "file name" (and Filename not FileName).

We're working at a lower level, so we should probably call them directories and not folders, but either would be ok if you were consistent.