A Complete Guide to Web Design

52 Chapter 4 – A Beginner’s Guide to the Server

Introduction to Unix

Web Design in a Nutshell, eMatter Edition

Relative pathnames

A relative pathname points to a file or directory relative to your current working

directory. When building a web site on a single server, relative pathnames are

commonly used within URLs to refer to files in other directories on the server.

Unless you specify an absolute name (starting with a slash) the shell assumes you

are using a relative pathname. Starting in your current location (your working

directory), you can trace your way up and down the directory hierarchy. This is

best explained with an example.

If I am currently working in the directoryjenand I want to refer to the fileart.html,

the relative pathname would bepers/art.htmlbecause the fileart.htmlis in the

directory pers, which is in the current directory, jen. This is illustrated in

Figure 4-4.

Figure 4-3: Visual representation of the path /users/jen/pers

Figure 4-4: Visual representation of the path pers/art.html relative to the jen

directory

/ (root)

bin etc users tmp lib

jen richard

work pers

art.html

work

/

users

jen

pers

/users/jen/pers

/ (root)

bin etc users tmp lib

jen richard

work pers

art.html

work

jen

pers

pers/art.html

art.html

current directory