PathBuf does not have is_empty()

[dhardy]

It is possible to create an empty PathBuf:

let p = PathBuf::new();

— yet PathBuf has no is_empty() function (nor, apparently, do Path or OsStr or OsString).

This seems inconsistent.

Of course, there are several ways around this (p == PathBuf::new(), p.to_str().map_or(true, |s| s.is_empty()), wrapping with Option), but having a simple way to check this would be nice.

[frewsxcv]

Implemented in #31877.

[frewsxcv]

Now that #31608 landed, getting the length and emptiness is pretty easy:

let _ = some_path.as_os_str().len();
let _ = some_path.as_os_str().is_empty();

Does anyone think it's still worth it to add the len and is_empty methods on Path?

[dhardy]

I don't see why you'd want len() but is_empty() would be useful.

[alexcrichton]

Closing due to the reasons outlined in this comment

[dhardy]

@alexcrichton My use-case was completely different: using path == PathBuf::new() as a synonym for None. Possibly I should just wrap with Option even though technically it's more abstraction than needed.

[alexcrichton]

Yeah for now you probably want to take a look at .as_os_str() if you want to test a literally empty buffer, and otherwise None would probably be best for "this hasn't been initialized"