Absolute and Relative Paths

• A path identifies the location of a file or directory.

Absolute Paths

• An absolute path always starts from the root directory /.

• It is valid from anywhere on the file system, use it when certain of the location.

• Sometimes relative path can be longer than the absolute path, so an absolute path is prefered.

ls /var/log/syslog
# /var/log/syslog is an absolute path to the syslog file

Relative Paths

• A relative path starts from the current directory to the resource.

• Is generally shorter than an absolute path, used for similar local directory structures, for projects.

cd /var
ls log/syslog
# log/syslog is a relative path

ls ./log/syslog
# Using "." it specifies the commands starts in the current working directory

ls ../home/user/Documents/
# ".." is the parrent of the current working directory

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