BUG: --glob-input relative path error

[felix9743]

I use the Windows binary to convert the images extracted from a PDF but when I give a relative path, it tells me that it does not find it.

It works properly with --input, so the problem probably comes from --glob-input.

It however works correctly if I give an absolute path.

[foresterre]

I've confirmed that this is indeed an issue. Thanks!

[foresterre]

I've been looking into this issue, and found lots of interesting questions:

• globs are tricky
• this bug is either caused by my misuse of the globwalk crate used by sic, or a bug or unsupported expansion in globwalk
  • A few days ago I tried and compared various different glob libraries in the Rust ecosystem, and found that each has its own set of quirks
• for example: not all (rust) glob libraries support the same syntax
  • glob (unmaintained) and nu_glob (maintained) support a smaller subset than most others
  • globwalk, the one used by this crate combines globset via ignore (as alternative to using globset and walkdir directly), ignore can add glob overrides which affect directory traversal
  • wax supports an extensive set of syntax, and is very well tested, but only supports forward slashes, and flatly rejects drive letters (for windows), requiring some pre-processing and post-processing in the name of cross-platform support
• a question every glob library has to ask: should the glob expansion support filesystem features, like .. (directory up) and . (current directory), or drive letters (windows drive mounting points)
  • globwalk, the library I currently use does not support these, but I already work around this issue for ./path relative paths in the current codebase
  • if yes, should they only be supported at the start of the path, or also between path components beyond the first, like hello/../world/*.png or hello/./world/*.png, and what should hello//world mean?
  • if no, can a dependent which does access filesystems infer these directories where possible, e.g. a reasonable
  • if you're going to evaluate . (current directory) beyond the first path component (first path component: ./some, beyond: hello/./some), then you may run into issues like BUG: Partial conversion with the Glob method #1656
• we can differentiate between a glob matcher libraries, like globset and a libraries which also resolves actual file system paths, like globwalk and glob
  • should only the latter support file system operations like .. and .?
    • if yes, should a resolving library "lower" glob patterns which include such syntax to paths which do not include this syntax, to be ingested by glob matcher libraries?
      • if yes, aren't we really still writing two glob parsers in one?
• is it viable to support file system syntax, or can it make glob syntax ambiguous?

The plan

• globwalk is unmaintained
  • I forked it into globwalker
  • This fork will aims to be cross platform and practical
  • First I will move the local workarounds from sic to the globwalker crate
  • Then I will consider fixing the bug reported here
  • Then I will consider supporting (or not) other file name

I'm also still considering dropping absolute path support; then a pre-processed version of wax may be preferable (like I've implemented here)

Libraries

Still also happy to use/replace the glob library used. A list of libraries I'm aware of follows:

No filesystem walker

• globset
• glob-match

Includes filesystem walker

• globwalk globwalker
• wax
• globmatch
• ignore
  • via Glob override