f

API/folder.py

@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ class API_folder_store:
         Args:
             library_root: Path to the local library root directory
         """
-        self.library_root = expand_path(library_root)
+        self.library_root = expand_path(library_root).resolve()
         self.db_path = self.library_root / self.DB_NAME
         self.connection: Optional[sqlite3.Connection] = None
         # sqlite3 connections are not safe for concurrent use across threads.
@@ -218,14 +218,24 @@ class API_folder_store:
         self._init_db()
 
     def _normalize_input_path(self, file_path: Path) -> Path:
-        p = expand_path(file_path)
-        if not p.is_absolute():
-            # Check if it already seems to start with library_root but just wasn't absolute
-            # (e.g. library_root is "C:\foo" and p is "foo\bar" which might happen in some cases)
-            # though usually it's better to just join.
-            # But the recursive case happened because library_root was "$home/files" (not absolute)
-            # and p was "$home/files/..." (not absolute).
-            p = self.library_root / p
+        p = expand_path(file_path).resolve()
+        # If the path is relative to the current working directory, we check if it's meant to be in the library_root.
+        # However, because we call .resolve() above, it's already absolute relative to CWD if it was relative.
+        # But we want it to be absolute relative to library_root if it's not absolute or if it exists in library_root.
+        
+        # If it's already under library_root, we are done.
+        try:
+            p.relative_to(self.library_root)
+            return p
+        except ValueError:
+            pass
+
+        # If it was a relative path (unresolved), we should have joined it before resolving.
+        # Let's re-expand without resolve to check if it's absolute.
+        raw_p = expand_path(file_path)
+        if not raw_p.is_absolute():
+            return (self.library_root / raw_p).resolve()
+            
         return p
 
     def _to_db_file_path(self, file_path: Path) -> str:
@@ -2349,8 +2359,8 @@ class DatabaseAPI:
     """Query API wrapper for LocalLibraryDB providing specialized search methods."""
 
     def __init__(self, search_dir: Path):
-        self.search_dir = search_dir
-        self.db = API_folder_store(search_dir)
+        self.search_dir = expand_path(search_dir).resolve()
+        self.db = API_folder_store(self.search_dir)
 
     def __enter__(self):
         self.db.__enter__()
@@ -2749,8 +2759,8 @@ class LocalLibraryInitializer:
 
     def __init__(self, library_root: Path):
         """Initialize the database scanner."""
-        self.library_root = Path(library_root)
-        self.db = API_folder_store(library_root)
+        self.library_root = expand_path(library_root).resolve()
+        self.db = API_folder_store(self.library_root)
         self.stats = {
             "files_scanned": 0,
             "files_new": 0,

SYS/utils.py

@@ -37,7 +37,15 @@ def expand_path(p: str | Path | None) -> Path:
     """Expand ~ and environment variables in path."""
     if p is None:
         return None  # type: ignore
-    expanded = os.path.expandvars(str(p))
+    s = str(p)
+    # Courtesy check for $home -> $HOME if we're on a POSIX-like system
+    # (where env vars are case-sensitive)
+    if os.name != 'nt' and '$home' in s and '$HOME' not in os.environ:
+         # If $home is literally used in config but only HOME is defined
+         if 'HOME' in os.environ:
+             s = s.replace('$home', '$HOME')
+    
+    expanded = os.path.expandvars(s)
     return Path(expanded).expanduser()