Make external local paths relative to project dir

See Fortran-FOSS-Programmers#676 (comment)

ford/external_project.py

@@ -172,7 +172,8 @@ def load_external_modules(project):
                     urlopen(urljoin(url, "modules.json")).read().decode("utf8")
                 )
             else:
-                url = pathlib.Path(url).resolve()
+                if not pathlib.Path(url).is_absolute():
+                    url = project.settings.directory.joinpath(url).resolve()
                 extModules = modules_from_local(url)
         except (URLError, json.JSONDecodeError) as error:
             extModules = []

ford/settings.py

@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ class ProjectSettings:
     creation_date: str = "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z"
     css: Optional[Path] = None
     dbg: bool = True
+    directory: Path = Path.cwd()
     display: List[str] = field(default_factory=lambda: ["public", "protected"])
     doc_license: str = ""
     docmark: str = "!"
@@ -255,14 +256,14 @@ def from_markdown_metadata(cls, meta: Dict[str, Any], parent: Optional[str] = No
     def normalise_paths(self, directory=None):
         if directory is None:
             directory = Path.cwd()
-        directory = Path(directory).absolute()
+        self.directory = Path(directory).absolute()
         field_types = get_type_hints(self)
 
         if self.favicon == FAVICON_PATH:
             self.favicon = Path(__file__).parent / FAVICON_PATH
 
         if self.md_base_dir == Path("."):
-            self.md_base_dir = directory
+            self.md_base_dir = self.directory
 
         for key, value in asdict(self).items():
             if value is None:
@@ -272,10 +273,10 @@ def normalise_paths(self, directory=None):
 
             if is_same_type(default_type, List[Path]):
                 value = getattr(self, key)
-                setattr(self, key, [normalise_path(directory, v) for v in value])
+                setattr(self, key, [normalise_path(self.directory, v) for v in value])
 
             if is_same_type(default_type, Path):
-                setattr(self, key, normalise_path(directory, value))
+                setattr(self, key, normalise_path(self.directory, value))
 
         if self.relative:
             self.project_url = self.output_dir

test/test_projects/test_676.py

@@ -38,17 +38,21 @@ def external_project(tmp_path_factory, monkeymodule):
     external_project = path / "base"
     top_level_project = path / "plugin"
 
+    # Generate the individual projects from their common parent
+    # directory, to check that local path definitions are
+    # relative to the project directory, irrespective of the
+    # working directory.
+    os.chdir(path)
+
     # Run FORD in the two projects
     # First project has "externalize: True" and will generate JSON dump
     with monkeymodule.context() as m:
-        os.chdir(external_project)
-        m.setattr(sys, "argv", ["ford", "doc.md"])
+        m.setattr(sys, "argv", ["ford", "base/doc.md"])
         ford.run()
 
     # Second project uses JSON from first to link to external modules
     with monkeymodule.context() as m:
-        os.chdir(top_level_project)
-        m.setattr(sys, "argv", ["ford", "doc.md"])
+        m.setattr(sys, "argv", ["ford", "plugin/doc.md"])
         ford.run()
 
     # Make sure we're in a directory where relative paths won't