[luatex] pathutl library in luatex

[Lukas Heindl]

Hi,

I'm currently working on an extraction script for the memoize package written in (tex)lua (see [1]).
As I also worked on cluttex (a build system similar to latexmk, see[2], now working on the fork cluttealtex), I discovered there are some issues/functions that frequently come up, particularly regarding files/paths. Generally this is a common scheme with lua where the standard-library is quite small. Luatex already includes some libraries used for common tasks, like lfs/luafilesystem or md5. Looking for more information on already in luatex included lua libraries, I came across [3] which lists a library with functions like joinpath, replacesuffix or basename. Running the script [4] that generated this list, I can't find such functions in my environment.

Does a pathlib library (handling all the quirks with different path-seperators etc) already exist in luatex (and I'm just not able to find a reference on it)?
And if not are there any plans to write and include such a library?

I see also some lua projects in the luatex context, like l3build, write their own "libraries" [5]. But path operations are needed quite frequently and it doesn't make sense that each luatex package needs to write such a library from scratch.

TL;DR
- does a pathutil library already exist for luatex?
- is it planned to write and include one?
- I'd vote for such a library (could also help writing one / including one in luatex)

Best Wishes
Lukas


[1]: https://github.com/atticus-sullivan/memoize/tree/feat-texlua-script
[2]: https://ctan.org/pkg/cluttex
[3]: https://github.com/Josef-Friedrich/LuaTeX_Lua-API
[4]: https://github.com/Josef-Friedrich/LuaTeX_Lua-API?tab=readme-ov-file#zlib (a bit below that anchor)
[5]: https://github.com/latex3/l3build/blob/main/l3build-file-functions.lua