Referring to file and directory names

When a file or directory is referred to in the Desktop, its name may be used in four ways:

absolute pathname

the full name of the file or directory, which always begins with a slash

basename

the name of the file/directory within its directory. It is the part of the absolute pathname following the last slash. In addition, the file or directory name's ``extension'' is the part of the basename from the last dot.

dirname

the name of the directory holding the file or directory. It is the part of the absolute pathname preceding the last slash.

relative pathname

the path to a file or directory, starting from your home directory

For example, the various names of the file /user/fred/work/letter.ed are:

absolute pathname

/user/fred/work/letter.ed

basename

letter.ed

extension

.ed

dirname

/user/fred/work

relative pathname

work/letter