How to convert boost path type to string?

Hello I currently have a program that gets a full path of a file's location and is put into a variable that is the type of: boost::filesystem2::path

I have looked up how to do this and have found that using:

string result1 = boost::filesystem::basename (myPath)

will convert the path to string BUT it only converts the file name (e.g. if the path is "C:\name\bobsAwesomeWordDoc.docx" it just returns "bobsAwesomeWordDoc").

I have found the following on how to convert the entire path to string, but I don't know how to implement it in my program. I have tried multiple ways but I am getting conversion errors.

const std::string& string( ): This routine returns a copy of the string with which the path was initialized, with formatting per the path grammar rules.

(found here)

I have tried:

string result1 = string& (myPath);

and a few other variations.

Solution 1:

You just need to call myPath.string().

Solution 2:

I believe you need to do a little more than just convert the path to a string - you should first obtain the canonical version of the path - an absolute path with no symbolic-link elements - and convert that into a string:

boost::filesystem::canonical(myPath).string();

P.S. - I've been programming with Boost for ages and I couldn't easily find this info in the docs.

Update (Oct 2017)

Documentation: boost::filesystem::canonical.

But note that as of C++17 there is std::filesystem, with canonical and a lot more.