# Paths A _path_ encapsulates a filesystem path that \(potentially\) names a file or directory. Although paths can be converted to and from strings and byte strings, neither strings nor byte strings are suitable for representing general paths. The problem is that paths are represented in the filesystem as either byte sequences or UTF-16 sequences \(depending on the operating systems\); the sequences are not always human-readable, and not all sequences can be decoded to Unicode scalar values. Despite the occasional encoding problems, most paths can be converted to and from strings. Thus, procedures that accept a path argument always accept a string, and the printed form of a path uses the string decoding of the path inside `#`. The `display` form of a path is the same as the `display` form of its string encodings. Examples: ```racket > (string->path "my-data.txt") # > (file-exists? "my-data.txt") #f > (file-exists? (string->path "my-data.txt")) #f > (display (string->path "my-data.txt")) my-data.txt ``` Procedures that produce references to the filesystem always produce path values, instead of strings. Example: ```racket > (path-replace-suffix "foo.scm" #".rkt") # ``` Although it’s sometimes tempting to directly manipulate strings that represent filesystem paths, correctly manipulating a path can be surprisingly difficult. Windows path manipulation is especially tricky, because path elements like `"aux"` can have special meanings. > +\[missing\] in \[missing\] documents the fine points of Windows > filesystem paths. Use procedures like `split-path` and `build-path` to deconstruct and construct paths. When you must manipulate the name of a specific path element \(i.e., a file or directory component in a path\), use procedures like `path-element->bytes` and `bytes->path-element`. Examples: ```racket > (build-path "easy" "file.rkt") # > (split-path (build-path "easy" "file.rkt")) # # #f ```