| Moving Around (Navigation) General Discussion. |
| The server uses and maintains standard, UNIX-like paths and directories. Therefore, if you are familiar with UNIX file systems (or even DOS or WINDOWS), then you can ignore this section. Just remember that this server uses the forward slash, /, to separate directories from subdirectories. It neither uses, nor recognizes, the backward slash as a separator. 1) Use forward slash, /, character to separate directories from subdirectories (UNIX style). 2) The server always maintains a �working path� for you. When you successfully login, the server places you in the root directory, represented by �/�. 3) You can navigate through your subdirectories, if necessary, and change your �working path� by issuing the Client�s Change Directory (CD) command: 4) Use Your Client�s Print Working Directory (normally PWD) to display your current �working path and directory�. 5) Remember that you can also specify absolute or relative paths on other client�s commands such as GET and PUT, as well. If the path is absolute (i.e., starts with a slash), then the current �working path� is not used while processing the command. Otherwise, it will be used along with your current working path. In either case, the current working path remains as is (i.e., unchanged). |
| An absolute path (one which starts with a forward slash) totally replaces your current �working path�. A relative path (one that does not start with a forward slash), on the other hand, extends it. Study the following commands and their effects.. Assume that we start with "/" You issue: Your �working� path becomes: CD SECRET (relative to /) /SECRET CD WHAT.IS.THIS (relative to /SECRET) /SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS CD .. (up one level) /SECRET CD / (go straight to Home directory) / CD /SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS/MORE /SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS/MORE |
| Example 1: Relative path: Assume that your current working path is "/SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS/MORE" If you issue GET subdir/file tgt_file the server GETs file from " /SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS/MORE/SUBDIR" |
| Example 2: Absolute path: Again, assume that your current working path is "/SECRET/WHAT.IS.THIS/MORE" If you issue GET /NEW/HLQ1.HLQ2.HLQ3/file tgt_file the server Gets file from " /NEW/HLQ1.HLQ2.HLQ3" |