Small, Sharp Software Tools

Navigating Files and Folders

The cd command lets you change directories. It’s the tool for changing our current working directory, or the “location” on the filesystem. As you’ve already seen, using cd by itself takes you straight to your home directory. Execute this command in your shell right now:

$ cd

Then, execute the pwd command to check your location. You will then see a file path displayed:

$ pwd
/home/brian

Each slash in the path represents a part of the hierarchy. So, /home/brian is just another way to represent this:

/
└── home/
    └── brian

If you’ve built a website and referenced images or CSS files, or written code to work with files, you’re already familiar with the concept of specifying paths to files.

Your home ...