How to write cross-platform unit tests with os.path?

Question

I want to write a simple unit test with os.path.basename

Example

def test(path):
    return os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(title))

...

result = test('/path/foo')
assert result == 'foo'

result = test(r'c:\Users\Foo\Documents\foo')
assert result == 'foo'

Problem

Running on linux the second test (windows path) is failing.
I guess the first test will fail on windows.
This actually makes pretty much sense since there are different os.path modules

Python Documentation

Since different operating systems have different path name conventions, there are several versions of this module in the standard library.

Question

Is there a way to import a specific version of os.path ?
I already tried to set sys.platform to win32

Of course I could check the current platform and just run one of both tests - but I was wondering if there is a way to run both tests.

Answer 1

You should always use / as the path separator. Python will translate it to the correct separator for your platform.

\\ is used to start escape sequences. Using / will avoid having to use raw strings to disable \\ escape sequences (as in the second string in your post).

Using \\ in raw strings may also cause os.path methods to behave oddly (and will only work on Windows platforms).