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In this Bash article, we will learn different ways to get the absolute path in Linux. We will also learn some different Linux commands to get the absolute path of a file.

Before we begin, we need to understand the basic concepts of absolute and relative paths in Linux operating system.

How to get the absolute path in Bash

The building blocks of an operating system are files and folders. As Linux users, we operate multiple file and directory operations.

Finding the full path of a file is one such process. The full path of a file is also called its absolute path or canonical path.

The address used to find a file or folder is called a path. An absolute path is a complete address or location that allows us to retrieve the required file from any location.

Also, create a relative path to the active working directory.

A path is a reference to a directory or file. In Linux, there are two kinds of paths: absolute and relative.

The current working directory determines the relative path. On the other hand, an absolute path is the complete path to a file or directory.

There are several ways in Bash to get the full address of a script. We can use realpath, readlink, or even write our own little custom script.

Using relative addresses makes it very easy to get the entire address.

The entire path is provided explicitly from the root directory. /is an easy way to know which is which.

A relative path does not /start with (root folder). This article will explain how to find the absolute path of a script in Bash.

This article describes several methods for determining the complete path to a file or folder.

Root directory of files in Linux

The topmost directory of the file system is the Root Directory or Absolute Directory in Linux. The root directory is represented by a slash /.

We can use /a full path beginning with a slash to describe the location of any file or directory in the file system.

This complete path is called an absolute path, which means it tells every step that must be performed starting from the root or absolute beginning of the file system.

Using the cd Command

The cd (change directory) command in Linux operating system is used to change the current working directory.

$ cd /tmp

Using the mkdir command

We then use the mkdir command followed by the name you want to give the new directory.

$ mkdir -p dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/dir15

Create a directory using the touch command

After creating one or more new directories, we will use the touch command to create, change, or modify our files.

Sample code:

$ touch dir11/dir12/file12.txt
$ touch dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/file14.txt
$ touch dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/dir15/file15.txt

Output of the code:

$ tree /tmp/dir11/
/tmp/dir11/
└── dir12
    ├── dir13
    │   └── dir14
    │       ├── dir15
    │       │   └── file15.txt
    │       └── file14.txt
    └── file12.txt

In the above example, we created 4 directories and 3 files. Our absolute directory is dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/dir15/file15.txt .

Relative paths to files in Linux

Absolute paths are easy to understand, but can be inconvenient to use, especially when dealing with deeply nested directories.

This is where relative paths come in handy. Also, looking at the code above, our relative directory path is dir13/file12.txt.

Get the absolute path using readlink command in Linux

readlinkThe readlink command can be used to obtain the full address of a file. readlink is often used to capture the path of a symbolic link or a canonical file.

However, readlinkit is also possible to compute an absolute path given a relative path. In any case, you have to append the flag to the reading link.

In this case, the f flag is most often used.

readlinkThe command returns a list of canonical file names. To find the full path of a file, we can use the -f parameter of this command.

These are directories, and within these directories are files. We can get the absolute path to any file we need.

Sample code:

$ cd /tmp/dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/dir15/

We will write the name of the file we want to get the path for.

$ readlink -f file15.txt

After using with the file name readlink -f, we get the exact path to the file, here it is:

/tmp/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/file5.txt

As we can see in the output of the code, we get the absolute path to the file we wanted.

Get the absolute path using realpath command in Linux

As an alternative, we can use realpath command to get the absolute path of a file in Linux.

Sample code:

$ cd /tmp/dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/
$ realpath file14.txt

This is the path to the file file14.txt.

/tmp/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/file4.txt

As we can see, using realpath command, we can get the required absolute path of a file in Linux.

Get the absolute path using find command in Linux

We can find the structure or hierarchy of a directory using the find command. In Linux, we can use the find command to print the absolute path or location of a file.

We will use the following code to find the absolute path of file14.txt.

$ cd /tmp/dir11/
$ find $PWD -type f -name file14.txt

The absolute path of the file file14.txt is:

/tmp/dir11/dir12/dir13/dir14/file14.txt

As we can see in the above code output, we got the absolute path of the file we wanted using the find command in the terminal.

We hope you found this article helpful in understanding how to get the absolute path of any file in Linux operating system.