Path (computing)

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For other meanings for this term, see Path

A path is the general form of a file or directory name, giving a file's name and its unique location in a file system. Paths point to their location using a string of characters signifying directories, separated by a delimiting character, most commonly the slash "/" or backslash character "\", though some operating systems may use a different delimiter. Paths are used extensively in computer science to represent the folder/file relationships common in modern operating systems, and are essential in the construction of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

A path can be either absolute or relative. A full path or absolute path is a path that points to the same location on one file system regardless of the working directory or combined paths. It is usually written in reference to a root directory.

A relative path is a path relative to the current working directory, so the full absolute path may not need to be given.

Contents 1 Representations of paths by operating system 2 Universal Naming Convention 3 Example 4 See also 5 References

Representations of paths by operating system

	Unix-like operating system	DOS and descendant operating systems such as OS/2 and Microsoft Windows	Japanese version of Microsoft Windows	Classic Mac OS	AmigaOS	RISC OS	Korean version of Microsoft Windows
Parent-Child Direction	Left-Right	Left-Right	Left-Right	Left-Right	Left-Right	Left-Right	Left-Right
Root Directory	/	<drive letter>:\	<drive letter>:¥	<drive name>:	<drive, volume or assign name>:	<fs type>::<drive name>.$	<drive letter>:₩
Directory Separator	/	\	¥	:	/	.	₩

On Unix-like operating systems and on DOS and its descendants, PATH is an environment variable listing directories where executables may be found.

Universal Naming Convention

The Universal Naming Convention, or UNC, specifies a common syntax to describe the location of a network resource, such as a shared file, directory, or printer. The UNC syntax for Windows systems is as follows:

\\computername\sharedfolder\resource

where 'computername' is the hostname, 'sharedfolder' is a shared directory with a name chosen by the host providing the share, and 'resource' is a shared directory, file, or printer. The hostname may also be identified by a fully-qualified domain name or by IP address. The 'sharedfolder' may exist anywhere on the remote host system, and is not restricted to the filesystem root directory.

Unix-like systems occasionally use a similar syntax, with forward slashes ( / ) in place of backslashes ( \ ), but usually write the syntax as computername:/directory/resource [1] or, like URLs, for example smb://computername/sharedfolder.

The UNC method started with the UNIX operating system. UNIX systems use the forward-slash character as a path separator. Many network services such as FTP have their origins in the UNIX operating system, so they use forward-slashes instead of the backslashes that DOS/Windows uses. It is important to recognize this distinction when using these services.

Example

Here is an example with a Unix style file system as it would appear from a terminal or terminal application (command-line window):

Your current working directory (cwd) is:

/users/mark/

You want to change your current working directory to:

/users/mark/bobapples

At that moment, the relative path for the directory you want is:

./bobapples

and the absolute path for the directory you want is

/users/mark/bobapples

Because bobapples is the relative path for the directory you want, you may type the following at the command prompt to change your current working directory to bobapples:

cd bobapples

Two dots ("..") are used for moving up in the hierarchy, to indicate the parent directory; one dot (".") represents the directory itself. Both can be components of a complex relative path (e.g., "../mark/./bobapples"), where "." alone or as the first component of such a relative path represents the working directory. (Using "./foo" to refer to a file "foo" in the current working directory can sometimes be useful to distinguish it from a resource "foo" to be found in a default directory or by other means; for example, to view a specific version of a man page instead of the one installed in the system.)

Windows also uses the path extensively throughout the modern editions of its operating systems and Office applications, which users can customize. By default, in Windows 98 or above, each folder and Windows Explorer window has an address bar by which you can navigate a different path, or view the path of the current working directory.

The "find" and "search" utilities under Windows have always featured the path as a sortable option, though in Windows 95 the column was truncated by default, allowing the user to resize the "path" column manually until the path became sufficiently visible.

In IE 4 with the Windows Desktop Update and Windows 98, (and above), it is part of the metadata displayed in Windows Explorer's HTML-containing window pane above the search results if you are using the Search sidebar--a function that in Windows XP is seamlessly integrated with Explorer and Internet Explorer's Search sidebar.

Here are some examples of MS-DOS/Windows style paths:

A:\Temp\car.jpeg

This pathname points to a file whose name is car.jpeg, which is located in the directory Temp, which in turn is located in the root directory of the drive A:.

C:..\Launch.avi

This pathname refers to a file called Launch.avi located in the parent directory of the current directory on drive C:.

Program Files\Viewer\viewer.exe

This pathname denotes a file called viewer.exe located in Viewer directory which in turn is located in Program Files directory which is located in the current directory of the current drive (since no drive specification is present in this example).

viewer.exe

This rather simple pathname points to a file named viewer.exe located in the current directory (since no directory specification is present) on the current drive (since no drive specification is present).

See also

• Filename
• Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

References

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.de:Uniform Naming Convention es:Ruta (informática) fr:Chemin d'accès

Wikipedia information about Path (computing) This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Path (computing)". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.