;docformat='rst'
;+
;    Normalize a string assumed to be a path by converting any backslashes
;      (from a Windows path) to slashes (unix), then replacing consecutive
;      slashes with a single slash.
;    Finally the the slashes are replaced by whatever is returned by the
;      IDL operating system dependent function "path_sep()"
;
; :Author:
;    Chris Jeppesen
;
;-
;+
; :Params:
;   p_: in, required, type=string
;     a path to be normalized
;-
;+
; :Examples:
;     path = normalize_path('/crazy\path//with///problems')
;-
function normalize_path,p_
  p=p_
  ;keep track if the original had a / at the beginning
  begin_slash=(strmid(p,0,1) eq '/')
  ;Turn all folder separators to unix convention
  p=strrep(p,'\\','/',/regex)
  ;Remove duplicates (converts even numbers of / to a single /)
  p=strrep(p,'//','/',/regex)
  ;Remove duplicates (Do it again in case there were an odd number of /)
  p=strrep(p,'//','/',/regex)
  ;Turn all folder separators to local convention
  p=strrep(p,'/',path_sep(),/regex)
  ;put beginning slash back on (code above invariably strips it off)
  if begin_slash then p='/'+p
  return,p
end