GetPathRoot of windows path on unix machine.

[bengabayAtM]

Hi all,
My name is Ben and I am working at Microsoft on MDE (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint).
we have a code that is using Path.GetPathRoot

The Problem we are experiencing:
We transfer our service that uses this function to Kubernetes and because it is running on ubuntu vm on Kubernetes we are failing
to use Path.GetPathRoot when passing a windows path. for example, we have this path "C:\mydir\myfile.ext"
and we want to get 'C:' as return value from Path.GetPathRoot.
but instead, we are getting an empty string back as we are running on unix machine, and this path is not a valid path on unix so it doesn't return C:\ as the root directory. sometimes we are also passing unix valid path.

My Question/Suggestion:
Is there a way we can tell the function to treat this path it is giving the right way? meaning even though we are running on a unix machine we will be able to pass it a windows valid path and a flag stating this is a windows path so it will know to parse it correctly.
if there isn't a way to do that, can I suggest to maybe add that option if this is possible to make?

Example on how it is working on windows vs how it is working on unix:
passing windows path on windows machine: windows example
passing windows path on ubunto: unix example

Thanks,
Ben.

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Issue Details

---

Hi all,
My name is Ben and I am working at Microsoft on MDE (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint).
we have a code that is using Path.GetPathRoot

The Problem we are experiencing:
We transfer our service that uses this function to Kubernetes and because it is running on ubuntu vm on Kubernetes we are failing
to use Path.GetPathRoot when passing a windows path. for example, we have this path "C:\mydir\myfile.ext"
and we want to get 'C:' as return value from Path.GetPathRoot.
but instead, we are getting an empty string back as we are running on unix machine, and this path is not a valid path on unix so it doesn't return C:\ as the root directory. sometimes we are also passing unix valid path.

My Question/Suggestion:
Is there a way we can tell the function to treat this path it is giving the right way? meaning even though we are running on a unix machine we will be able to pass it a windows valid path and a flag stating this is a windows path so it will know to parse it correctly.
if there isn't a way to do that, can I suggest to maybe add that option if this is possible to make?

Example on how it is working on windows vs how it is working on unix:
passing windows path on windows machine: windows example
passing windows path on ubunto: unix example

Thanks,
Ben.

Author:	bengabayAtM
Assignees:	-
Labels:	area-System.IO, untriaged
Milestone:	-

[danmoseley]

If it's just this API would pasting in the windows implementation into your code as your own version to use be sufficient?

[bengabayAtM]

Yes, I thought about doing that as a solution for now. but wasn't sure if I am missing something and it is possible doing with your code as it is, but I guess not as it kind of missing the whole idea of cross Platform code, I guess.

Thanks for the quick response :)

[adamsitnik]

Hi @bengabayAtM

Thank you for creating the issue and providing clear requirements. Since you are not the first user asking for that and we have requests for other cross-platform Path functionality (#64890, #28263, #25011) I am going to re-open the issue to keep track of it.