Find file/dir path

nc3b · 08-27-2006, 02:28 PM

Hello everyone. Can anybody tell me how can I get the absolute path of a file/directory? Thank you.

nilleso · 08-27-2006, 02:33 PM

pwd will give you your present working directory.
...no sure what your asking for... do you know the filename?

if so you can use find / -name yourfilename to locate a specific file on disk.
Or you can use (slocate yourfilename)

If this doesn't answer your needs please repost specifics.
cheers

nc3b · 08-27-2006, 02:36 PM

You are right I was ambigous. I know the relative path of the file.
Do you think I should use pwd to find out the absolute path to the curent directory and then join this path with the relative given path?
I don't know..

indienick · 08-27-2006, 03:49 PM

Well, there's a problem with using "pwd" to get the current directory. If you are in a symlinked directory, "pwd" won't give you the absolute path.
For instance, I have a symlinked directory, called '/kdm-sessions', which points to '/usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions', and if I go "cd /kdm-sessions; pwd", I get "/kdm-sessions".

jlliagre · 08-27-2006, 04:00 PM

Try that one:

Code:

realPath()
{
  if [ -d $1 ]
  then
    (cd $1; pwd)
  else
    if [ -f $1 ]
    then
      echo $(cd $(dirname $1); pwd)/$(basename $1)
    else
      echo $1 not found
    fi
  fi
}

nc3b · 08-28-2006, 04:49 AM

This is great! Thank you