1.5Understanding Paths

Absolute vs. Relative Paths

There are two ways to refer to any file or directory:

# Absolute path: starts from root (/)
# Unambiguous -- works no matter what your current directory is
/home/qa/projects/webapp/tests/login.spec.ts

# Relative path: relative to current directory
# Shorter, but depends on where you are
tests/login.spec.ts                # If you are in /home/qa/projects/webapp/
../webapp/tests/login.spec.ts      # If you are in /home/qa/projects/api/

Special Path Symbols

Symbol	Meaning	Example
/	Root directory	cd /
~	Home directory	cd ~/projects
.	Current directory	cp ./config.json /tmp/
..	Parent directory	cd ..
-	Previous directory	cd -

Pro Tip: In scripts, always use absolute paths. Relative paths break when the script is executed from a different working directory.