Simplify a Filesystem Path

L4 Easy Stack

Concept

Filesystem paths can be simplified with a stack: split on "/", skip empty pieces and ".", and treat ".." as a pop.

Given an absolute Unix-style path path, return its canonical form. Rules: a single slash separates directories, a trailing slash is dropped, "." refers to the current directory (ignore it), and ".." moves up one directory. The canonical path always starts with "/".

Examples

▸ path = "/home/"

→ /home

▸ path = "/../"

→ /

▸ path = "/a/./b/../../c/"

→ /c

Progressive Hints

Hint 1 · Nudge

Split into pieces and let a stack keep only the directories that survive '..'.

Hint 2 · Plan

Split the path by '/'. For each piece: ignore empty pieces and '.'. For '..', pop the last directory if there is one. Otherwise push the piece as a directory. Join the stack with '/' and prefix it with '/'.

Hint 3 · Approach

stack = []. For each part in path split by '/': if part is empty or '.', skip; if part is '..', pop when non-empty; otherwise push part. Return '/' plus the stack joined by '/'.

Output

// Run your code to see the output here.