Bug in Path's .relativize() documentation or am I doing something blatantly wrong here?

Question

OK well, here is something fun. Note that "elements" here is an instance of PathElements , and for these .resolve() and .relativize() are fully tested and known to work ... Links to the relevant method implementations Path.resolve() , Path.relativize()

Extract of the test method that fails:

/*
 * This test this part of the Path's .relativize() method:
 *
 * <p> For any two {@link #normalize normalized} paths <i>p</i> and
 * <i>q</i>, where <i>q</i> does not have a root component,
 * <blockquote>
 * <i>p</i><tt>.relativize(</tt><i>p</i><tt>.resolve(</tt><i>q</i><tt>))
 * .equals(</tt><i>q</i><tt>)</tt>
 * </blockquote>
 *
 * Unfortunately, that turns out NOT TO BE TRUE! Whether p is absolute or
 * relative, it is indeed the case that the path elements (root, names) are
 * the same but the filesystem DIFFERS.
 *
 * An as Path's .equals() requires that the two filesystems be equal in
 * order for two Paths to be equals, this contract can not be obeyed; or I
 * am doing something VERY wrong.
 */
@Test(enabled = false)
public void relativizeResolveRoundRobinWorks()
{
    /*
     * In order to set up the environment we define a mock
     * FileSystemProvider which both our mock filesystems will return when
     * .provider() is called.
     *
     * We also suppose that the same PathElementsFactory is used; while this
     * code is not written yet, there should be only one such factory per
     * FileSystemProvider anyway (which is fed into all generated FileSystem
     * instances -- at least that's the plan).
     *
     * Note that this test method assumes that .equals() and .hashCode() are
     * not implemented on GenericPath. As such we check that the FileSystem
     * is the same (this is required by Path's equals()) and that the path
     * elements are the same (this is this package's requirements).
     */
    final FileSystemProvider fsProvider = mock(FileSystemProvider.class);
    final PathElementsFactory elementsFactory
        = new UnixPathElementsFactory();
    final FileSystem fsForP = mock(FileSystem.class);
    final FileSystem fsForQ = mock(FileSystem.class);

    when(fsForP.provider()).thenReturn(fsProvider);
    when(fsForQ.provider()).thenReturn(fsProvider);

    /*
     * The path to be operated. As the contract says, it has no root
     * component.
     */
    final GenericPath q = new GenericPath(fsForQ, elementsFactory,
        new PathElements(null, new String[] { "q1", "q2" }));

    /*
     * The path against which both resolution and relativization are
     * performed. We take two versions of it: a non absolute one and an
     * absolute one.
     *
     * Note that since we use a UnixPathElementsFactory, we equate an
     * absolute path (or not) to a path which has a root component (or not).
     */
    GenericPath p;
    // "rr" as in "resolved, relativized"
    GenericPath rr;

    final CustomSoftAssertions soft = CustomSoftAssertions.create();

    /*
     * Try with the absolute version first...
     */
    p = new GenericPath(fsForP, elementsFactory,
        new PathElements("/", new String[] { "p1", "p2" }));
    rr = (GenericPath) p.relativize(p.resolve(q));

    soft.assertThat(rr.getFileSystem())
        .as("rr and q filesystems should be the same (p absolute)")
        .isSameAs(q.getFileSystem());
    soft.assertThat(rr.elements).hasSameContentsAs(q.elements);

    /*
     * Now with the non absolute version
     */
    p = new GenericPath(fsForP, elementsFactory,
        new PathElements(null, new String[] { "p1", "p2" }));
    rr = (GenericPath) p.relativize(p.resolve(q));

    soft.assertThat(rr.getFileSystem())
        .as("rr and q filesystems should be the same (p not absolute)")
        .isSameAs(q.getFileSystem());
    soft.assertThat(rr.elements).hasSameContentsAs(q.elements);

    soft.assertAll();
}

This test fails with:

org.assertj.core.api.SoftAssertionError: 
The following 2 assertions failed:
1) [rr and q filesystems should be the same (p absolute)] 
Expecting:
 <Mock for FileSystem, hashCode: 1125642929>
and actual:
 <Mock for FileSystem, hashCode: 1497261280>
to refer to the same object
2) [rr and q filesystems should be the same (p not absolute)] 
Expecting:
 <Mock for FileSystem, hashCode: 1125642929>
and actual:
 <Mock for FileSystem, hashCode: 1497261280>
to refer to the same object

And obviously so!

• r = p.resolve(q) will give a Path which shares the same filesystem as p, not q;
• therefore, p.relativize(r) will also give a Path with the same filesystem as p;
• but the Path contract requires that in order for two paths to be equal, they share the same filesystem.

And this is always false in this scenario.

So, is this a blatant bug in the documentation or am I overlooking something?

Answer 1

A: The documentation does not mention Paths from other filesystem.

The documentation for resolve and relativize is not perfectly clear here. But in case were the argument path is from a different filesystem resolve and relativize must throw ProviderMismatchException. Your test should throw earlier.

The constraints on a path can be quite different from filesystem to filesystem. Consider the relativize case. What should a path look like that can walk from one filesystem to another disjoint filesystem ?

Note: I tested several FileSystem implementations and all throw in that case.