Navigating the file system — Basics of Bash

• Important note
• Lesson notes
• Recommended reading

Important note

There are two types of paths:

• Absolute path
• Relative path

Absolute path shows the location of a folder or a file from the root directory /. In other words, it's a complete path from the very beginning of the filesystem to the target. Examples of absolute paths:

• /Users/john/Documents/report.pdf
• /home/craig/photos

Relative path shows the location of a folder or a file from the working (current) directory. For example, if you're in /Users/john/ right now, then Documents/report.pdf is a relative path.

This is similar to a complete postal address (3500 Deer Creek Road. Palo Alto, CA 94304, United States of America — absolute path), or a incomplete postal address (5th ave., 12 — relative path, relative to the city you're in).

Lesson notes

• 'working directory' is your current directory
• cd is used to move
• Unix-based file systems look like trees, with a root directory in the very beginning.

Recommended reading

• Bash (Unix shell) Wikipedia