The path list is a convenient way of storing a number of directories, and
when presented with a filename without a directory, searching for an existing file
-in those directories. Storing the filename only in an application's files and
-using a locally-defined list of directories makes the application and its files more
-portable.
+in those directories.
-Use the \helpref{wxFileName::SplitPath}{wxfilenamesplitpath} global function
-to extract the filename from the path.
+Be sure to look also at \helpref{wxStandardPaths}{wxstandardpaths} if you only
+want to search files in some standard paths.
\wxheading{Derived from}
\func{void}{AddEnvList}{\param{const wxString\& }{env\_variable}}
Finds the value of the given environment variable, and adds all paths
-to the path list. Useful for finding files in the PATH variable, for
+to the path list. Useful for finding files in the {\tt PATH} variable, for
example.
\membersection{wxPathList::Add}\label{wxpathlistadd}
-\func{void}{Add}{\param{const wxString\& }{path}}
+\func{bool}{Add}{\param{const wxString\& }{path}}
\func{void}{Add}{\param{const wxArrayString\& }{arr}}
The first form adds the given directory to the path list, if the path is not already in the list.
+If the path cannot be normalized for some reason, it returns \false.
+
The second form just calls the first form on all elements of the given array.
The {\it path} is always considered a directory but no existence checks will be done on it
\membersection{wxPathList::EnsureFileAccessible}\label{wxpathlistensurefileaccessible}
-\func{void}{EnsureFileAccessible}{\param{const wxString\& }{filename}}
+\func{bool}{EnsureFileAccessible}{\param{const wxString\& }{filename}}
-Given a full filename (with path), ensures that files in the same path
-can be accessed using the pathlist. It does this by stripping the
-filename and adding the path to the list if not already there.
+Given a full filename (with path), calls \helpref{Add}{wxpathlistadd} with the path
+of the file.
\membersection{wxPathList::FindAbsoluteValidPath}\label{wxpathlistfindabsolutepath}
\constfunc{wxString}{FindAbsoluteValidPath}{\param{const wxString\& }{file}}
-Searches for a full (i.e. absolute) path for an existing file by appending {\it file} to
-successive members of the path list. If the file wasn't found, an empty
-string is returned.
+Like \helpref{FindValidPath}{wxpathlistfindvalidpath} but this function always
+returns an absolute path (eventually prepending the current working directory
+to the value returned \helpref{FindValidPath}{wxpathlistfindvalidpath}) or an
+empty string.
\membersection{wxPathList::FindValidPath}\label{wxpathlistfindvalidpath}
\constfunc{wxString}{FindValidPath}{\param{const wxString\& }{file}}
-Searches for a path for an existing file by appending {\it file} to
-successive members of the path list.
-If the file wasn't found, an empty string is returned.
+Searches the given file in all paths stored in this class.
+The first path which concatenated to the given string points to an existing
+file (see \helpref{wxFileExists}{wxfileexists}) is returned.
-The returned path may be relative to the current working directory.
+If the file wasn't found in any of the stored paths, an empty string is returned.
The given string must be a file name, eventually with a path prefix (if the path
prefix is absolute, only its name will be searched); i.e. it must not end with
a directory separator (see \helpref{wxFileName::GetPathSeparator}{wxfilenamegetpathseparator})
otherwise an assertion will fail.
+
+The returned path may be relative to the current working directory.
+Note in fact that wxPathList can be used to store both relative and absolute paths so that
+if you \helpref{Add()}{wxpathlistadd}ed relative paths, then the current working directory
+(see \helpref{wxGetCwd}{wxgetcwd} and \helpref{wxSetWorkingDirectory}{wxsetworkingdirectory})
+may affect the value returned by this function!
+