Path Name – Dots in Path Name

directoryfilenames

I am receiving an error from an application I am running.

The error looks like this:

john@john-replacement:~/Desktop/yarbu-1.4.8/bin$ sudo yarbu-engine --VERBOSE
/usr/local/bin/yarbu-engine: line 996: cd: /usr/local/bin/../../etc/yarbu/conf/default: No such file or directory

What do the dots mean in /usr/local/bin/../../etc/ ?

Best Answer

The ../ is notation for "the parent directory" so, in the case you presented:

/usr/local/bin/../../etc/yarbu/conf/default

The system will resolve that as:

/usr/etc/yarbu/conf/default

It's the same as if you were in the directory /usr/local/bin and you then typed cd .. twice, you would now be in the /usr directory.

You can verify this yourself: 

$ cd /usr/local/bin
$ pwd
/usr/local/bin
$ cd /usr/local/bin/../../../
$ pwd
/
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