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Accepted
Karl Morrison
Asked: 2017-01-14 05:13:13 +0800 CST

Show full path to file in terminal [duplicate]

  • 772

I have a file. I'd like to echo out the full path to it in the terminal.

Which command would?

command-line

4 Answers

  1. Use readlink with -e flag. Not only it gives you full path to file, it also presents real path of the symlinks

    $ readlink -e ./out.txt                                                                                                  
/home/xieerqi/out.txt

    I personally use it in my own scripts whenever it's necessary to get full path of a file

    • 22
  2. Best Answer

    I found it:

    sudo apt-get install realpath

    Then:

    realpath MY_FILE
    • 9

  3. If you don't know the location of the file use find command.

    find / -name MY_FILE

    It will print full path of MY_FILE starting from /.

    or you can use find $PWD -name MY_FILE to search in current directory.

    If you know the location of MY_FILE then go to folder containg MY_FILE and use

    pwd command to print the full path of MY_FILE.

    • 5

  4. Here is a function to show paths to files, you may just need the "fpath=...." part ?

    pathtofile () { : "gives full path to files given in parameters.";
  for f in "$@"; do
    fpath="$(
      cd -P "$(dirname "$f")" && \
      printf '%s\n' "$(pwd)/$(basename "${f}")" || \
      { echo "__An error occured while determining path to file: '${f}'."\
             "Maybe your user can't access its directory, most likely?__"
      }  )"
    printf "Full path to: %s\n          is: %s\n" "'${f}'" "'${fpath}'";
  done
}

    Use with: 

    pathtofile   file1  ../file2  /some/pathwithsymlink/file3

    The important part: cd -P somedir : shows the full "real" path to somedir.

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