How to get full path of a file?

Use readlink:

readlink -f file.txt

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I suppose you are using Linux.

I found a utility called realpath in coreutils 8.15.

realpath -s file.txt
/data/ail_data/transformed_binaries/coreutils/test_folder_realpath/file.txt

Since the question is about how to get the full/absolute path of a file and not about how to get the target of symlinks, use -s or --no-symlinks which means don't expand symlinks.

As per @styrofoam-fly and @arch-standton comments, realpath alone doesn't check for file existence, to solve this add the e argument: realpath -e file

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The following usually does the trick:

 echo "$(cd "$(dirname "$1")" && pwd -P)/$(basename "$1")"

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I know there's an easier way that this, but darned if I can find it...

jcomeau@intrepid:~$ python -c 'import os; print(os.path.abspath("cat.wav"))'
/home/jcomeau/cat.wav

jcomeau@intrepid:~$ ls $PWD/cat.wav
/home/jcomeau/cat.wav

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On Windows:

Holding Shift and right clicking on a file in Windows Explorer gives you an option called Copy as Path. This will copy the full path of the file to clipboard.

On Linux:

You can use the command realpath yourfile to get the full path of a file as suggested by others.

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find $PWD -type f | grep "filename"

or

find $PWD -type f -name "*filename*"

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If you are in the same directory as the file:

ls "`pwd`/file.txt"

Replace file.txt with your target filename.

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I know that this is an old question now, but just to add to the information here:

The Linux command which can be used to find the filepath of a command file, i.e.

$ which ls
/bin/ls

There are some caveats to this; please see https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-do-i-find-the-path-to-a-command-file/.

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You could use the fpn (full path name) script:

% pwd
/Users/adamatan/bins/scripts/fpn

% ls
LICENSE   README.md fpn.py

% fpn *
/Users/adamatan/bins/scripts/fpn/LICENSE
/Users/adamatan/bins/scripts/fpn/README.md
/Users/adamatan/bins/scripts/fpn/fpn.py

fpn is not a standard Linux package, but it's a free and open github project and you could set it up in a minute.

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Works on Mac, Linux, *nix:

This will give you a quoted csv of all files in the current dir:

ls | xargs -I {} echo "$(pwd -P)/{}" | xargs | sed 's/ /","/g'

The output of this can be easily copied into a python list or any similar data structure.

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You may use this function. If the file name is given without relative path, then it is assumed to be present in the current working directory:

abspath() { old=`pwd`;new=$(dirname "$1");if [ "$new" != "." ]; then cd $new; fi;file=`pwd`/$(basename "$1");cd $old;echo $file; }

Usage:

$ abspath file.txt
/I/am/in/present/dir/file.txt

Usage with relative path:

$ abspath ../../some/dir/some-file.txt
/I/am/in/some/dir/some-file.txt

With spaces in file name:

$ abspath "../../some/dir/another file.txt"
/I/am/in/some/dir/another file.txt

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You can save this in your shell.rc or just put in console

function absolute_path { echo "$PWD/$1"; }
alias ap="absolute_path"

example:

ap somefile.txt

will output

/home/user/somefile.txt

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In a similar scenario, I'm launching a cshell script from some other location. For setting the correct absolute path of the script so that it runs in the designated directory only, I'm using the following code:

set script_dir = `pwd`/`dirname $0`

$0 stores the exact string how the script was executed.

For e.g. if the script was launched like this: $> ../../test/test.csh, $script_dir will contain /home/abc/sandbox/v1/../../test

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For Mac OS X, I replaced the utilities that come with the operating system and replaced them with a newer version of coreutils. This allows you to access tools like readlink -f (for absolute path to files) and realpath (absolute path to directories) on your Mac.

The Homebrew version appends a 'G' (for GNU Tools) in front of the command name -- so the equivalents become greadlink -f FILE and grealpath DIRECTORY.

Instructions for how to install the coreutils/GNU Tools on Mac OS X through Homebrew can be found in this StackExchange arcticle.

NB: The readlink -f and realpath commands should work out of the box for non-Mac Unix users.

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echo $(cd $(dirname "$1") && pwd -P)/$(basename "$1")

This is explanation of what is going on at @ZeRemz's answer:

This script get relative path as argument "$1" Then we get dirname part of that path (you can pass either dir or file to this script): dirname "$1" Then we cd "$(dirname "$1") into this relative dir && pwd -P and get absolute path for it. -P option will avoid all symlinks After that we append basename to absolute path: $(basename "$1") As final step we echo it

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The shortest way to get the full path of a file on Linux or Mac is to use the ls command and the PWD environment variable.

<0.o> touch afile
<0.o> pwd
/adir
<0.o> ls $PWD/afile
/adir/afile

You can do the same thing with a directory variable of your own, say d.

<0.o> touch afile
<0.o> d=/adir
<0.o> ls $d/afile
/adir/afile

Notice that without flags ls <FILE> and echo <FILE> are equivalent (for valid names of files in the current directory), so if you're using echo for that, you can use ls instead if you want.

If the situation is reversed, so that you have the full path and want the filename, just use the basename command.

<0.o> touch afile
<0.o> basename $PWD/afile
afile

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I was surprised no one mentioned located.

If you have the locate package installed, you don't even need to be in the directory with the file of interest.

Say I am looking for the full pathname of a setenv.sh script. This is how to find it.

$ locate setenv.sh
/home/davis/progs/devpost_aws_disaster_response/python/setenv.sh
/home/davis/progs/devpost_aws_disaster_response/webapp/setenv.sh
/home/davis/progs/eb_testy/setenv.sh

Note, it finds three scripts in this case, but if I wanted just one I would do this:

$ locate *testy*setenv.sh
/home/davis/progs/eb_testy/setenv.sh

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I like many of the answers already given, but I have found this really useful, especially within a script to get the full path of a file, including following symlinks and relative references such as . and ..

dirname `readlink -e relative/path/to/file`

Which will return the full path of the file from the root path onwards. This can be used in a script so that the script knows which path it is running from, which is useful in a repository clone which could be located anywhere on a machine.

basePath=`dirname \`readlink -e $0\``

I can then use the ${basePath} variable in my scripts to directly reference other scripts.

Hope this helps,

Dave

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This worked pretty well for me. It doesn't rely on the file system (a pro/con depending on need) so it'll be fast; and, it should be portable to most any *NIX. It does assume the passed string is indeed relative to the PWD and not some other directory.

function abspath () {
   echo $1 | awk '\
      # Root parent directory refs to the PWD for replacement below
      /^\.\.\// { sub("^", "./") } \
      # Replace the symbolic PWD refs with the absolute PWD \
      /^\.\//   { sub("^\.", ENVIRON["PWD"])} \
      # Print absolute paths \
      /^\//   {print} \'
}

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This is naive, but I had to make it to be POSIX compliant. Requires permission to cd into the file's directory.

#!/bin/sh
if [ ${#} = 0 ]; then
  echo "Error: 0 args. need 1" >&2
  exit 1
fi


if [ -d ${1} ]; then


  # Directory


  base=$( cd ${1}; echo ${PWD##*/} )
  dir=$( cd ${1}; echo ${PWD%${base}} )

  if [ ${dir} = / ]; then
    parentPath=${dir}
  else
    parentPath=${dir%/}
  fi

  if [ -z ${base} ] || [ -z ${parentPath} ]; then
    if [ -n ${1} ]; then
      fullPath=$( cd ${1}; echo ${PWD} )
    else
      echo "Error: unsupported scenario 1" >&2
      exit 1
    fi
  fi

elif [ ${1%/*} = ${1} ]; then

  if [ -f ./${1} ]; then


    # File in current directory

    base=$( echo ${1##*/} )
    parentPath=$( echo ${PWD} )

  else
    echo "Error: unsupported scenario 2" >&2
    exit 1
  fi
elif [ -f ${1} ] && [ -d ${1%/*} ]; then


  # File in directory

  base=$( echo ${1##*/} )
  parentPath=$( cd ${1%/*}; echo ${PWD} )

else
  echo "Error: not file or directory" >&2
  exit 1
fi

if [ ${parentPath} = / ]; then
  fullPath=${fullPath:-${parentPath}${base}}
fi

fullPath=${fullPath:-${parentPath}/${base}}

if [ ! -e ${fullPath} ]; then
  echo "Error: does not exist" >&2
  exit 1
fi

echo ${fullPath}

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This works with both Linux and Mac OSX:

echo $(pwd)$/$(ls file.txt)

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find / -samefile file.txt -print

Will find all the links to the file with the same inode number as file.txt

adding a -xdev flag will avoid find to cross device boundaries ("mount points"). (But this will probably cause nothing to be found if the find does not start at a directory on the same device as file.txt)

Do note that find can report multiple paths for a single filesystem object, because an Inode can be linked by more than one directory entry, possibly even using different names. For instance:

find /bin -samefile /bin/gunzip -ls

Will output:

12845178    4 -rwxr-xr-x   2 root     root         2251 feb  9  2012 /bin/uncompress
12845178    4 -rwxr-xr-x   2 root     root         2251 feb  9  2012 /bin/gunzip

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Usually:

find `pwd` | grep <filename>

Alternatively, just for the current folder:

find `pwd` -maxdepth 1 | grep <filename>

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This will work for both file and folder:

getAbsolutePath(){
    [[ -d $1 ]] && { cd "$1"; echo "$(pwd -P)"; } || 
    { cd "$(dirname "$1")" || exit 1; echo "$(pwd -P)/$(basename "$1")"; }
}

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Another Linux utility, that does this job:

fname <file>

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For Mac OS, if you just want to get the path of a file in the finder, control click the file, and scroll down to "Services" at the bottom. You get many choices, including "copy path" and "copy full path". Clicking on one of these puts the path on the clipboard.

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fp () {
PHYS_DIR=`pwd -P`
RESULT=$PHYS_DIR/$1
echo $RESULT | pbcopy
echo $RESULT
}

Copies the text to your clipboard and displays the text on the terminal window.

:)

(I copied some of the code from another stack overflow answer but cannot find that answer anymore)

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In Mac OSX, do the following steps:

cd into the directory of the target file. Type either of the following terminal commands.

ls "`pwd`/file.txt"
echo $(pwd)/file.txt

Replace file.txt with your actual file name. Press Enter

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Beside "readlink -f" , another commonly used command:

$find /the/long/path/but/I/can/use/TAB/to/auto/it/to/ -name myfile /the/long/path/but/I/can/use/TAB/to/auto/it/to/myfile $

This also give the full path and file name at console

Off-topic: This method just gives relative links, not absolute. The readlink -f command is the right one.

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Create a function like the below (echoes the absolute path of a file with pwd and adds the file at the end of the path:

abspath() { echo $(pwd "$1")/"$1"; }

Now you can just find any file path:

abspath myfile.ext

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