diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/PathTokenizer.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/PathTokenizer.java
index ded0ab4d5..5e59cdd5a 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/PathTokenizer.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/PathTokenizer.java
@@ -77,8 +77,15 @@ public class PathTokenizer {
      */
     private String lookahead = null;
 
+    /**
+     * Flag to indicate whether we are running on a platform with a DOS style
+     * filesystem
+     */
+    private boolean dosStyleFilesystem;
+
     public PathTokenizer(String path) {
        tokenizer = new StringTokenizer(path, ":;", false);
+       dosStyleFilesystem = File.pathSeparatorChar == ';'; 
     }
 
     public boolean hasMoreTokens() {
@@ -100,7 +107,7 @@ public class PathTokenizer {
         }            
             
         if (token.length() == 1 && Character.isLetter(token.charAt(0))
-                                && File.pathSeparator.equals(";") 
+                                && dosStyleFilesystem
                                 && tokenizer.hasMoreTokens()) {
             // we are on a dos style system so this path could be a drive
             // spec. We look at the next token
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/Project.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/Project.java
index f24fafcb4..61d6a0378 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/Project.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/Project.java
@@ -499,43 +499,36 @@ public class Project {
     }
 
     /**
-        Translate a path into its native (platform specific)
-        path. This should be extremely fast, code is
-        borrowed from ECS project.
-        <p>
-        All it does is translate the : into ; and / into \
-        if needed. In other words, it isn't perfect.
-
-        @returns translated string or empty string if to_process is null or empty
-        @author Jon S. Stevens <a href="mailto:jon@clearink.com">jon@clearink.com</a>
-    */
+     * Translate a path into its native (platform specific) format. 
+     * <p>
+     * This method uses the PathTokenizer class to separate the input path
+     * into its components. This handles DOS style paths in a relatively
+     * sensible way. The file separators are then converted to their platform
+     * specific versions.
+     *
+     * @param to_process the path to be converted   
+     *
+     * @return the native version of to_process or 
+     *         an empty string if to_process is null or empty
+     */
     static public String translatePath(String to_process) {
-        if ( to_process == null || to_process.length() == 0 ) return "";
-
-        StringBuffer bs = new StringBuffer(to_process.length() + 50);
-        StringCharacterIterator sci = new StringCharacterIterator(to_process);
-        String path = System.getProperty("path.separator");
-        String file = System.getProperty("file.separator");
-        String tmp = null;
-        for (char c = sci.first(); c != CharacterIterator.DONE; c = sci.next()) {
-            tmp = String.valueOf(c);
-
-            if (tmp.equals(":")) {
-                // could be a DOS drive or a Unix path separator...
-                // if followed by a backslash, assume it is a drive
-                c = sci.next();
-                tmp = String.valueOf(c);
-                bs.append( tmp.equals("\\") ? ":" : path );
-                if (c == CharacterIterator.DONE) break;
-            }
+        if ( to_process == null || to_process.length() == 0 ) {
+            return "";
+        }
 
-            if (tmp.equals(":") || tmp.equals(";"))
-                tmp = path;
-            else if (tmp.equals("/") || tmp.equals ("\\"))
-                tmp = file;
-            bs.append(tmp);
+        StringBuffer path = new StringBuffer(to_process.length() + 50);
+        PathTokenizer tokenizer = new PathTokenizer(to_process);
+        while (tokenizer.hasMoreTokens()) {
+            String pathComponent = tokenizer.nextToken();
+            pathComponent = pathComponent.replace('/', File.separatorChar);
+            pathComponent = pathComponent.replace('\\', File.separatorChar);
+            if (path.length() != 0) {
+                path.append(File.pathSeparatorChar);
+            }
+            path.append(pathComponent);
         }
-        return(bs.toString());
+        
+        return path.toString();
     }
 
     /**