Re: small code smell

Tim Hemel wrote:

> Here's one that can perhaps be made a lot simpler, by borrowing someone else's
> code:
> 
> shorten_name in Util.py
> 
> A similar function is described in the Python Cookbook:
> 
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/208993
> 
> periperi(116):~/programs> python relpath.py
> from /a/b/c/d to /a/b/c1/d1  ->  ../../c1/d1
> from /foo/bdir/foo.o to /foo/test  ->  ../../test
> from /foo/test to /foo/bdir/foo.o  ->  ../bdir/foo.o
> 
> The functions do not work with . and .. in the filenames, but that can be
> solved by always normalizing the pathnames.

This doesn't look simpler at all.  Looking at the code I can guess it's
a lot slower, because commonpath() calls itself recursively for every
character.  This smells like a classroom example...

Path handling needs to be fast, because it's done very often.  And it
also needs to take care of forward- vs back-slashes.

Reminds me to do some profiling one of these days...

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