What Is a Relative Path Name?

A relative path name is a path name that starts without the leading slash "/". If a relative path name is used in a URL, the relative path name will be replaced with the current document path name appended with the specified relative path name.

If "." or ".." is used in path names, it will be interpreted as "current directory" or "parent directory" respectively. For example, if the following URLs are used in this document you are viewing right now:

  ./index.html
  ../index.html
  ../../index.html
  ../../faq/css/index.html
  image/fyi.jpg

your browser will borrow the protocol name, the host name, the port number, and the path name from the URL of this document, and produce the following URLs:

  http://dev.fyicenter.com:80/faq/xhtml/index.html
  http://dev.fyicenter.com:80/faq/index.html
  http://dev.fyicenter.com:80/index.html
  http://dev.fyicenter.com:80/faq/css/index.html
  http://dev.fyicenter.com:80/faq/xhtml/image/fyi.jpg

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