3.1.1.2 Project Directories

Large projects are generally composed of sub-projects, each using its own directory or directory structure. If nobody else will ever touch your files and you use only one computer, there is little to worry about, but this is rarely the case with a large project.

To improve portability, SWI-Prolog uses the POSIX notation for filenames, which uses the forward slash (/) to separate directories. Just before reaching the file system, SWI-Prolog uses prolog_to_os_filename/2 to convert the filename to the conventions used by the hosting operating system. It is strongly advised to write paths using the /, especially on systems using the \ for this purpose (MS-Windows). Using \ violates the portability rules and requires you to double the \ due to the Prolog quoted-atom escape rules.

Portable code should use prolog_to_os_filename/2 to convert computed paths into system paths when constructing commands for shell/1 and friends.