Web Design in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Unix Directory Structures

Because the Web was spawned from the Unix environment, it follows many of the same conventions. Directory structure and pathname syntax are prime examples. It is important for all web designers to have an understanding of how directory structures are indicated on the Unix platform since pathnames are used in hyperlinks and pointers to images and other resources.

Directories (“places” to store files) are organized into a hierarchical structure that fans out like an upside-down tree. The topmost directory is known as the root and is written as a forward slash ( / ). The root can contain several directories, each of which can contain subdirectories; each of these can contain more subdirectories, and so on. A subdirectory is said to be the “child” of the directory that holds it (its “parent”). Figure 4-1 shows a system with five directories under the root. The directory users has two subdirectories, jen and richard. Within jen are two more subdirectories, work and pers, and within pers is the file art.html.

Figure 4-1. Example of a directory hierarchy

A pathname is the notation used to point to a particular file or directory; it tells you the path of directories you must travel to get to where you want to go. There are two types of pathnames: absolute and relative.

Absolute Pathnames

An absolute pathname always starts from the root directory, which is indicated ...