PathUtils

Category: Fs

Source: path_utils.dart

Functions

String expandUserPath(String path, {String? home})

Expands a leading ~, ~/, or ~\ (Windows) in [path] to the user's home directory.

dart:io, Process.start, and docker -v do not perform shell-style tilde expansion — only a real shell does. Any path that originates from a user or agent and is then handed to one of those APIs (rather than to a shell command string) must be expanded first, or ~/foo is treated as a literal path segment relative to the current directory and silently fails.

Only a leading tilde-prefix is expanded (~ or ~/.../~\...); a mid-path ~, a ~user form, and $VAR references are left untouched. When no home can be resolved the path is returned unchanged.

Callers that already hold an environment map should pass [home] explicitly (e.g. home: env['HOME'] ?? env['USERPROFILE']) so the result is deterministic; otherwise the process environment is consulted.