document path submodule (#467)

yoshuawuyts · Stjepan Glavina · commit 266e6326eba6 · 2019-11-07T21:48:23.000Z
Signed-off-by: Yoshua Wuyts &lt;yoshuawuyts@gmail.com&gt;
diff --git a/src/path/mod.rs b/src/path/mod.rs
@@ -2,7 +2,68 @@
 //!
 //! This module is an async version of [`std::path`].
 //!
+//! This module provides two types, [`PathBuf`] and [`Path`][`Path`] (akin to [`String`]
+//! and [`str`]), for working with paths abstractly. These types are thin wrappers
+//! around [`OsString`] and [`OsStr`] respectively, meaning that they work directly
+//! on strings according to the local platform's path syntax.
+//!
+//! Paths can be parsed into [`Component`]s by iterating over the structure
+//! returned by the [`components`] method on [`Path`]. [`Component`]s roughly
+//! correspond to the substrings between path separators (`/` or `\`). You can
+//! reconstruct an equivalent path from components with the [`push`] method on
+//! [`PathBuf`]; note that the paths may differ syntactically by the
+//! normalization described in the documentation for the [`components`] method.
+//!
 //! [`std::path`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/path/index.html
+//!
+//! ## Simple usage
+//!
+//! Path manipulation includes both parsing components from slices and building
+//! new owned paths.
+//!
+//! To parse a path, you can create a [`Path`] slice from a [`str`]
+//! slice and start asking questions:
+//!
+//! ```
+//! use async_std::path::Path;
+//! use std::ffi::OsStr;
+//!
+//! let path = Path::new("/tmp/foo/bar.txt");
+//!
+//! let parent = path.parent();
+//! assert_eq!(parent, Some(Path::new("/tmp/foo")));
+//!
+//! let file_stem = path.file_stem();
+//! assert_eq!(file_stem, Some(OsStr::new("bar")));
+//!
+//! let extension = path.extension();
+//! assert_eq!(extension, Some(OsStr::new("txt")));
+//! ```
+//!
+//! To build or modify paths, use [`PathBuf`]:
+//!
+//! ```
+//! use async_std::path::PathBuf;
+//!
+//! // This way works...
+//! let mut path = PathBuf::from("c:\\");
+//!
+//! path.push("windows");
+//! path.push("system32");
+//!
+//! path.set_extension("dll");
+//! ```
+//!
+//! [`Component`]: enum.Component.html
+//! [`components`]: struct.Path.html#method.components
+//! [`PathBuf`]: struct.PathBuf.html
+//! [`Path`]: struct.Path.html
+//! [`push`]: struct.PathBuf.html#method.push
+//! [`String`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/string/struct.String.html
+//!
+//! [`str`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive.str.html
+//! [`OsString`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ffi/struct.OsString.html
+//! [`OsStr`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ffi/struct.OsStr.html
 
 mod ancestors;
 mod path;
