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I found a bug (or at least a shortcoming) in Python's os.path.normpath routine.
It overly normalizes, at least for Unix and Unix-like systems (including Mac), and 
Windows.
Example:
x = os.path.join(".", "dog", "..", "cupcake.txt")
print x
x = os.path.normpath(x)
print x
If say "dog" is a symlink (any flavor of Unix (including OS X), or Win), there is a 
difference between ./dog/../cupcake.txt and ./cupcake.txt.
In the OS, if dog is a symlink to fire/fly, the .. resolves relative to fire/fly.
It should be safe to normalize this:
././././././././cupcake.txt --> ./cupcake.txt
It should be safe to normalize this:
.////////////////cupcake.txt --> ./cupcake.txt
But this is not safe to normalize:
./x/../x/../x/../cupcake.txt --> ./cupcake.txt
For example, if the directories look like this:
./cupcake.txt
./over/yonder/back/cupcake.txt
./x --> over/there
./over/there
./over/x --> yonder/aways
./over/yonder/aways
./over/yonder/x --> back/again
./over/yonder/back/again
./cupcake.txt refers to first cupcake.
./x/../x/../x/../cupcake.txt refers to the second cupcake.
The os.path.realpath does the resolve, but sometimes the path-in-hand is for some 
arbitrary path, and not necessarily one on the local system, or if on the local 
files system may be relative based off from a different cwd.

This is a documented feature:
"""
normpath(path)
Normalize a pathname. ... It should be understood that this may change 
the meaning of the path if it contains symbolic links!
"""
See http://docs.python.org/lib/module-os.path.html .

Closing as "Won't fix".