Dots in path

Every directory contains a . and a .. entry.

. means the directory itself. It is called the current directory.

.. means the directory’s parent directory, that is, the directory that contains it.

There is one directory that is not contained by any other directory: /. So / is special–like all other directories, it contains a .. entry, but its .. entry is itself. So for /, and just for /, ..and . are equivalent.

These directory entries are handy for a variety of purposes. For example, you can change directory to the parent of the directory you’re currently in with the command cd ...

You may have seen . in the context of running programs or scripts. In a Unix-style shell, when you run a command by name, the shell doesn’t automatically try to run a program by the name in the current directory. (This is surprising to some users coming from Windows, where that does happen.) The main reason for this is security–if someone creates a program in their directory that has the same name as some system administration tool, and you run that tool while in their directory, they could have just tricked you into running their program.

So, to run a program that is not in your PATH, you must call it by some name that has a / in it. To run a program in the current directory, you can use ./program. (You cannot use /program, because that is an absolute path and means “the file called program in the root directory, /.)

Single dot “.” stands for current directory and double dots “..” mean parent directory. Similarly “~” stands for home directory. These shortcuts come in very handy because you don’t have to type in complete path of any file you want to access in a particular (or current) directory.
For Example-  typing cd .. takes you one directory up the Hierarchy.

This post is commbined from excerpts from http://askubuntu.com/questions/327126/what-is-a-dot-only-named-folder  and https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-the-single-and-double-dots-that-are-printed-in-the-command-line-when-you-list-the-contents-of-a-directory

1 thought on “Dots in path”

  1. And below you can see a few info about singer – Cissie Redgwick which I have found here https://www.discogs.com/artist/5339720-Cissie-Redgwick :
    Cissie Redgwick is the alter-ego of talented singer Rosie Doonan, whose own grandmother was the original ‘Cissie’. Brought up in a musical household, her dad and granddad were successful folk artists, the young Rosie was immersed in music. It was her grandmother however, that introduced her to the swing of the Andrew Sisters and the boogie sound of 3 part harmonies.
    Originally destined to be an actress, Rosie couldn’t escape her musical heritage and at college discovered her voice. She teamed up with 3 girls to form ‘The Sweet Nothings’, based on that Andrew Sisters swing. Keeping the other foot in the folk camp, she also teamed up with fellow musician Ben Murray and after only 6 months they were nominated for the Horizon Award for best folk newcomers. With appearances on Radio 2 and at the Royal Albert Hall behind her, it didn’t take long for the mighty voice of Peter Gabriel to come calling and Rosie found herself on tour with him and also, she has toured with the fantastically talented Birdy. But the musical influences of her grandmother were never far away and teaming up with Cuckoo Records, Cissie Redgwick was born.

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