zed-industries/zed · error

path is not relative: {result:?}

Error message

path is not relative: {result:?}

What it means

After normalization, RelPath::new determined the resulting path still escapes its invariants — normalization of '.' and '..' components would climb above the root or leave an invalid relative form. The offending normalized result is printed; typically the input contained a leading or excess '..'.

Source

Thrown at crates/path/src/rel_path.rs:101

        }

        let mut result = match string {
            Cow::Borrowed(string) => Cow::Borrowed(Self::from_str(string)),
            Cow::Owned(string) => Cow::Owned(RelPathBuf(string)),
        };

        if result
            .components()
            .any(|component| component == "" || component == "." || component == "..")
        {
            let mut normalized = RelPathBuf::new();
            for component in result.components() {
                match component {
                    "" => {}
                    "." => {}
                    ".." => {
                        if !normalized.pop() {
                            return Err(anyhow!("path is not relative: {result:?}"));
                        }
                    }
                    other => normalized.push(RelPath::from_str(other)),
                }
            }
            result = Cow::Owned(normalized)
        }

        Ok(result)
    }

    #[track_caller]
    pub fn new_test<'a>(path: &'a str) -> Cow<'a, Self> {
        Self::new(Path::new(path), PathStyle::Unix).unwrap()
    }

    /// Converts a path that is already normalized and uses '/' separators
    /// into a [`RelPath`] .

View on GitHub (pinned to f4178619ac)

Solutions

1. Remove leading '..' components from the input; a RelPath must stay within its base
2. Reject or sanitize user-supplied relative paths that traverse above the root
3. If reading from storage, audit writes that allowed un-normalized paths to be persisted

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at crates/path/src/rel_path.rs:101 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of zed-industries/zed@f4178619ac (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/11767fb0800c65df. Report an issue: GitHub.