REALPATH
Section: Debian (1)
Updated: March 29th, 2009
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NAME
realpath - return the canonicalised absolute pathname
SYNOPSIS
realpath
[-s|--strip]
[-z|--zero]
filename ...
realpath
--h|--help
realpath
--v|--version
DESCRIPTION
realpath
converts each
filename
argument to an absolute pathname, which has no
components that are symbolic links or the special
.
or
..
directory entries.
(See
realpath(3)
for more information.)
Please note that mostly the same functionality is provided by the `-f' option
of the
readlink(1)
command.
When the
-s
option is used
realpath
only removes the
.
and
..
directories, but not symbolic links from
filename.
If the given
filename
argument is relative (i.e. does not start with
`/'),
realpath -s
prepends to it the current directory name as obtained from the
getcwd(2)
system call before further processing.
Each converted pathname is output to the standard output,
on its own line.
OPTIONS
- -s, --strip
-
Only strip
.
and
..,
components, but do not resolve symbolic links.
- -z, --zero
-
Separate output filenames with the null character instead of newline,
so it can be used with the
`-0'
option of
xargs(1).
- -h, --help
-
Print short usage information.
- -v, --version
-
Show
realpath's
version number.
EXAMPLES
For the examples below let's suppose that
/usr/bin/X11
is a symbolic link, pointing to directory
/usr/bin.
Example 1
Regardless of what the current directory is
-
realpath /../usr/bin/X11/./xterm
prints
-
/usr/bin/xterm
but
-
realpath -s /../usr/bin/X11/./xterm
outputs
-
/usr/bin/X11/xterm
Example 2
When the current directory is
/usr/bin/X11
(which is still a symbolic link to
/usr/bin),
the output of both
-
realpath ./xterm
and
-
realpath -s ./xterm
will be
-
/usr/bin/xterm
Example 3
Providing that the current directory is
/home/user
(and the directory exists before and during the realpath run),
the command
-
realpath ../path/to/some/./non-existent/./directory/../or/../file
will fail with the following error
-
../path/to/some/./non-existent/./directory/../or/../file: No such file or directory
but
-
realpath -s ../path/to/some/./non-existent/./directory/../or/../file
will return
-
/home/path/to/some/non-existent/file
EXIT STATUS
realpath
returns a zero exit code when
all
pathnames were successfully converted.
In case of any errors (e.g. missing or unavailable directories in the path),
realpath
prints error message to stderr and returns a non-zero exit code.
SEE ALSO
basename(1),
dirname(1),
readlink(1),
realpath(3)
BUGS
Hopefully none :)
If you find some, please report them via the normal Debian bug reporting system, see the file
/usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt
in the package doc-debian or the
reportbug(1)
man page.
AUTHOR
Originally written by Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi>, as a part of the dwww package.
Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org> currently maintains and extends it.
realpath is licensed via the GNU General Public License.
While it has been written for Debian, porting it to other
systems is strongly encouraged.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- Example 1
-
- Example 2
-
- Example 3
-
- EXIT STATUS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- BUGS
-
- AUTHOR
-
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Time: 19:49:15 GMT, April 27, 2011