File paths

The file path describes the position of a file by identifying its position in the directory structure.

Specifically, it describes the route to that file from a starting point directory.

The route is described by naming each of the directories, in order, through which you must pass to get to the directory that contains the file. The directory names are separated by the path separator character, which on Unix is / (and Windows is \).

The file itself is identified by its filename. Remember that filenames are not unique within the file system, but they are unique in any given directory. That’s why identifying the directory that contains the file (that is, its path) allows you to uniquely identify the file.

• Absolute-paths describe the route starting from the root.

• Relative-paths describe the route starting from the current directory (although what that means depends a little on context).

You need to understand both, but in practice you’ll probably use relative paths more often.

Paths in URLs

You’ve seen paths like this in URLs on the web, because URLs use this mechanism too. In that case the links, such as tags inside the HTML like this:

<a href="/files/absolute-paths">absolute</a>

<a href="../relative-paths">relative</a>

…may be absolute or relative to the current page. But really they’re navigating a file structure — or simulating it — just like the one on your computer. The difference is that root described in the URL is the “document root” of the website, not the root of the entire file system of the server it’s running on.

That last point is important: it’s what prevents you navigating up the path to the root of the server the website is running on, and accessing files that are are stored on that machine but not part of the website.