def join(a, *p):
    """Join two or more pathname components, inserting '/' as needed.
    If any component is an absolute path, all previous path components
    will be discarded.  An empty last part will result in a path that
    ends with a separator."""
    path = a
    for b in p:
        if b.startswith('/'):
            path = b
        elif path == '' or path.endswith('/'):
            path +=  b
        else:
            path += '/' + b
    return path