PathInfo: A file information object in Python

This method returns a string containing two lines of output. The format is described in Section 5, “softlinks.py: Find soft links in a directory tree”. The class variables goodPrefix and badPrefix should be the same length; the former is used for links to existing files, the latter for broken links.

# - - -   L i n k I n f o . _ _ s t r _ _   - - -

    goodPrefix    =  "        "
    brokenPrefix  =  "   #### "

    def __str__ ( self ):
        """Convert a LinkInfo instance to a string.
        """

First we convert the link's absolute path name to a relative path name by removing self.__basePath from the front of it. This relies on the precondition that self.__basePath is a directory above self.path.

        #-- 1 --
        # [ fullPath  := self's absolute path without links
        #                replaced
        #   targetPath  :=  self's target path ]
        fullPath  =  self.absPath()
        targetPath  =  self.realPath()

        #-- 2 --
        # [ self.__basePath is a directory above fullPath ->
        #     relPath  :=  path to fullPath relative to
        #                  self.__basePath ]
        relPath  =  fullPath [ len(self.__basePath) + 1 : ]

Next we use os.path.exists() to find out whether the link is broken or not, and set prefix to indicate whether it is broken. Finally we format the two-line report string and return it.

        #-- 2 --
        # [ if  targetPath exists ->
        #     prefix  :=  self.goodPrefix
        #   else ->
        #     prefix  :=  self.brokenPrefix ]
        if  os.path.exists ( targetPath ):
            prefix  =  self.goodPrefix
        else:
            prefix  =  self.brokenPrefix

        #-- 3 --
        return ( "%s ->\n%s%s" %
                 (relPath, prefix, targetPath) )