Assertion fails when passing `C:` as command line argument

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
65/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli, operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the failing assertion in src/path.rs:12 and trace how src/bin/edit/main.rs handles the C: argument around handle_args. Reproduce the issue with cargo run -- C: on Windows, then verify that the command opens successfully with an untitled buffer without panicking.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Repro

Run the following command in this repository:

cargo run -- C:

Expected result

Edit opens successfully with an untitled buffer.

Actual result

Crashes with the following assertion error:

thread 'main' panicked at src\path.rs:12:5:
assertion failed: path.is_absolute()
stack backtrace:
   0: std::panicking::begin_panic_handler
             at /rustc/2805e1dc4c18ed4c84d161502c48da870c56f68a/library\std\src\panicking.rs:697
   1: core::panicking::panic_fmt
             at /rustc/2805e1dc4c18ed4c84d161502c48da870c56f68a/library\core\src\panicking.rs:75
   2: core::panicking::panic
             at /rustc/2805e1dc4c18ed4c84d161502c48da870c56f68a/library\core\src\panicking.rs:145
   3: edit::path::normalize
             at .\src\path.rs:12
   4: edit::handle_args
             at .\src\bin\edit\main.rs:253
   5: edit::run
             at .\src\bin\edit\main.rs:74
   6: edit::main
             at .\src\bin\edit\main.rs:56
   7: core::ops::function::FnOnce::call_once<std::process::ExitCode (*)(),tuple$<> >
             at /rustc/2805e1dc4c18ed4c84d161502c48da870c56f68a\library\core\src\ops\function.rs:250
note: Some details are omitted, run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=full` for a verbose backtrace.

Explanation

On Windows a drive letter path like C: is special. It is a relative path and it means the current working directory of the drive. If my understanding is correct, on Windows each drive has its current working directory.

This means

Path::new("C:").is_absolute()

returns false but

Path::new("C:\\foo").join("C:")

returns C:. This behavior causes the crash.

Dominant language
Rust
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