If you give a filename with no slashes or directory names before it at all, then Unix assumes
that you mean the file of that name in the current directory. This is an example of a
relative pathname. A relative pathname is any
pathname which doesn't begin with a slash (/) or tilde (~) character. It identifies the location
of a file relative to the current directory. For example,
suppose (as in the example of section 3.1) that
the current directory were /home/ugrad/myname, your home directory.
Then the pathname Stuff.doc refers to the top file of that name, and not the file
of the same name in the directory Dir2. That file would be referred to as
Dir2/Stuff.doc.
Unix provides some convenient shorthand for constructing relative pathnames, namely:
'.' Always stands for the current directory.
'..' Always stands for the parent of the current directory.
So in the simple example above, if your current directory were
Dir2, then the quickest way to reference
Picture.gif, which lies in the parent directory,
would be to type ../Picture.gif.
Keith Orpen,
who is still writing this, would like to
hear your comments and suggestions.