[PD] [file]: paths not relative to patch

[Christof Ressi]

> What I think should happen when instantiating any [file] objects is to
> set the working directory to the patch's directory and not to Pd's
> start directory. The latter is irrelevant in the cases I can think of.

And what would you *do* want to use the current working directory?

Generally, [file] doesn't do any magic. If you want to resolve an 
existing file using Pd's canvas: use [file which]. If you want create a 
new file relative to the patch, use [dir( -> [pdcontrol].

> Yeah, this works fine for finding already existing files, but as the
> help-file says, you cannot resolve directories with. So, it cannot be
> used for

But that's a general limitation of Pd. At the moment, it can only 
resolve files but not directories. This limitation can, of course, be 
removed and then [file which] will work as expection.

> I only need to append the
> configured path to the patch's path if the configured path is a
> relative path. But how can I reliably detect that?
I think what we actually need is something like [file isabsolute] and 
[file isrelative]! That would be a trivial but very useful addition.

Christof