Support qualified referencing for `ntpath.abspath()`

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

from @eryksun (https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/117855#discussion_r1579025703):

Offhand I can't remember why normpath() gets called first. The fact that it removes an initial "." component is even more of a nuisance now. It prevents qualified referencing of files with certain DOS device names in the working directory such as "./con" versus unqualified "con". Support for the latter was added in Windows 11. For example:

>>> nt._getfullpathname('./con')
'C:\\Temp\\con'
>>> nt._getfullpathname('con')
'\\\\.\\con'
>>> os.path.abspath('./con')
'\\\\.\\con'

Calling normpath() first was always an issue for unambiguous references to file streams of single-letter filenames in the current directory. For example:

>>> nt._getfullpathname('./Z:spam')
'C:\\Temp\\Z:spam'
>>> os.path.abspath('./Z:spam')
'Z:\\spam'

Windows would beg to differ about the significance of a leading "." component, in these cases and others. Anyway, I thought this version could at least address the inconsistent behavior with embedded null characters, while still calling normpath() first.

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

This is a minor feature, which does not need previous discussion elsewhere

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

• #117587
• #119826

Linked PRs

• gh-119849
• gh-126784

Start with the ntpath.abspath() entry point and read the linked discussions in #117587 and #119826, along with PRs #119849 and #126784. Reproduce the Windows examples for './con' and './Z:spam'; done means qualified references retain their intended behavior without regressing existing abspath handling.