Summary

Nuitka is now checking for illegal characters in specified paths, such as (in my case) using the --include-data-dirs option. However, this checking is overly restrictive, and prevents Python's cross-platform / conversion.

I believe the simple fix would be to remove the / character from the list of illegal characters defined here. I am happy to make this change and submit a PR, but I didn't want to jump to that as I'm not currently near a Windows computer for testing and wasn't sure if there were other implications.

Minimal reproducable sample

The following works on Linux, but would fail on Windows (my apologies for the bash syntax in file creation):

touch app.py
mkdir -p resources/locale
touch resources/locale/app.po
nuitka app.py --onefile --include-data-dir=resources/locale=resources/locale

You can see the output from my GitHub action with the actual files here. The relevant error message is:

Nuitka-Options: Used command line options: --onefile --include-data-dir=resources/locale=resources/locale --include-data-files=resources/stitcher-icon.ico=resources/stitcher-icon.ico --include-package-data=pdf_mangler --output-file=pdfstitcher.exe --windows-console-mode=disable --windows-icon-from-ico=resources/stitcher-icon.ico --assume-yes-for-downloads --output-dir=build --script-name=pdfstitcher/gui/app.py
Nuitka: Starting Python compilation with Nuitka '2.4.4' on Python '3.8' commercial grade 'not installed'.
FATAL: Error, cannot add data file with 'resources/locale\babel.cfg' path, as 'contains illegal character '/''

Relevant template questions and answers

• Nuitka version, full Python version, flavor, OS, etc. as output by this exact command.

  python -m nuitka --version

  I am running the Nuitka Action on GitHub's hosted windows-2019. I am unable to run this exact command, but the following information was printed as part of the run:

  Collecting nuitka
  Cloning https://github.com/Nuitka/Nuitka.git/ (to revision main) to c:\users\runneradmin\appdata\local\temp\pip-install-jhfm3g1f\nuitka_626ff6d1289c462f94118c5d7b75e9d4
  Running command git clone --filter=blob:none --quiet https://github.com/Nuitka/Nuitka.git/ 'C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-install-jhfm3g1f\nuitka_626ff6d1289c462f94118c5d7b75e9d4'
  Running command git checkout -b main --track origin/main
  branch 'main' set up to track 'origin/main'.
  Switched to a new branch 'main'
  Resolved https://github.com/Nuitka/Nuitka.git/ to commit c3b1c131c785553b582b362d5b1414d1000dff5d
  Running command git submodule update --init --recursive -q
  Installing build dependencies: started
  Installing build dependencies: finished with status 'done'
  Getting requirements to build wheel: started
  Getting requirements to build wheel: finished with status 'done'
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml): started
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml): finished with status 'done'
  Requirement already satisfied: ordered-set>=4.1.0 in c:\hostedtoolcache\windows\python\3.8.10\x64\lib\site-packages (from nuitka) (4.1.0)
  Requirement already satisfied: zstandard>=0.15 in c:\hostedtoolcache\windows\python\3.8.10\x64\lib\site-packages (from nuitka) (0.20.0)
  Building wheels for collected packages: nuitka
    Building wheel for nuitka (pyproject.toml): started
    Building wheel for nuitka (pyproject.toml): finished with status 'done'
    Created wheel for nuitka: filename=Nuitka-2.4.4-cp38-cp38-win_amd64.whl size=3401016 sha256=3e28c03ea9838c3fc3a44159bc668968459bb73af28331a64c9e4e9eef0db5aa
    Stored in directory: C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-ephem-wheel-cache-ukr1kc2m\wheels\[71](https://github.com/cfcurtis/pdfstitcher/actions/runs/10167847381/job/28121117326#step:5:74)\9e\d0\f505e86d3117e0b9bf4d57c59df42f91ea732fb3980b600661
  Successfully built nuitka
  Installing collected packages: nuitka
  Successfully installed nuitka-2.4.4

• How did you install Nuitka and Python?

  Using GitHub actions, specifically:

  - name: Install Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.8" # needs to be 3.8 to support Windows 7
  
  - uses: Nuitka/Nuitka-Action@main
        with:
          nuitka-version: main

• Note if this is a regression

  Yes, this is a regression. The workflow successfully ran in June here