In Allegro 5, al_make_path_canonical does not seem to convert relative paths to absolute, whereas Allegro 4's canonicalize_filename did (as I recall).

I concede that the newer approach makes perfect sense as a relative path is arguably more simple but don't worry about all that.

Anyway, I could missing something simple so...

Does Allegro 5 have a simple "1 liner" method to make a path absolute, or do I have to code my way around it by getting the CWD manually and appending the path?

al_make_path_absolute_where_possible()?

First create a path for the current working directory:

char *tmp = al_get_current_directory();
ALLEGRO_PATH *cwd = al_create_path_for_directory(tmp);
al_free(tmp);

Then whenever you want an absolute path:

al_rebase_path(cwd, path);

So it's a one liner if you first create a global path object for the current working directory. (Be sure to free it later.)

Leaks memory due to the call to al_get_current_directory().

Whoops.

Fixed :

string RelativeToAbsolute(string relative) {
   char* cwd = al_get_current_directory();
   string path = string(cwd) + ALLEGRO_NATIVE_PATH_SEP + relative;
   al_free(cwd);
   return path;
}

Thanks for the help people.

For the record I am working on porting a file picker dialog I originally wrote for AllegroGL under Allegro 4. I could not find a file dialog in 5 (apart from the native one which crashes in full screen and would require a mode switch anyway).

Sounds promising, I will look into that thanks.

Shot of work in progress picker here BTW
http://www.jbserver.com/temp/picker.jpg