Relative and absolute pathnames

When you reference a directory you must make sure that you are referencing the proper pathname. What is the difference between relative and absolute pathnames? Well the absolute pathname starts at the top of the directory structure. Not your directory top, but the root directory of the server. A relative pathname is in reference to what directory you are presently located.

This is important to understand, especially if, you want to do any cgi scripting. Calling an incorrect pathname by mistake can make for some frustrating debugging. The difference between the two is if there is a "/" at the beginning or not.

/usr/bin/perl

This is an absolute pathname that would access the perl file from the usr/bin directory from the root directory of the server.

This is a relative pathname that would take you from the present directory to the boston/stores subdirectory and would access fred.html