'''file nativename''' ''name''

Returns the platform-specific name of the file ''name''. This is useful if the filename is needed to pass to a platform-specific call, such as exec under Windows or AppleScript on the Macintosh.

[LES]: What is the difference between '''file nativename''' and '''file normalize'''? What does '''file nativename''' do that '''file normalize''' doesn't?

[RLH]: '''file normalize''' "Returns a ''unique normalised path'' representation for the file-system object (file, directory, link, etc), whose string value can be used as a unique identifier for it. "

[MG] Basically, [file normalize] expands ., .. and ~ to the "proper" elements, and [file nativename] shows the platform-specific directory separators. Usually, for the purposes of displaying a path, you want to use both. For example:

 (Griffiths) 2 % pwd
 C:/Documents and Settings/Griffiths
 (Griffiths) 3 % set path [file join .. .. windows]
 ../../windows
 (Griffiths) 4 % file normalize $path
 C:/WINDOWS
 (Griffiths) 5 % file nativename $path
 ..\..\windows
 (Griffiths) 6 % file nativename [file normalize $path]
 C:\WINDOWS
 (Griffiths) 7 % file normalize [file nativename $path]
 C:/WINDOWS

So, to display a path the platform-specific way,
 file nativename [file normalize $path]
is the thing to use, as it expands everything properly. On Windows, you can go a step further, and use
 file nativename [file attributes [file normalize $path] -shortname]
 file nativename [file attributes [file normalize $path] -longname]
to guarantee you get the short (MS-DOS type 8.3) names, or the longer, full/"real" file names. (You still need the ''file nativename'' on the outside, though, to get backslashes, rather than forward slashes.)

[Vince] says that [[file normalize]] is guaranteed to be the 'longname', so the second example is longer than necessary.  file nativename [[file normalize $path]] will do the same thing.
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See also:

   * [file]

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