Unix filestore is divided into a tree of directories and subdirectories.
At the very top level (or bottom level depending on how you look at it)
is the root directory, represented by the / character.
Below this are a number of system directories (such as /bin, /lib,
/dev) together with the directories for user files. Users can subdivide
their own directory into a number of subdirectories, so that they may group
their files according to the different areas of their work.
/
/ /|\ \
/ / | \ \
/ / | \ \
/ / | \ \
/ / | \ \
/ / | \ \
/ / | \ \
usr bin lib u1 u2
|
|
|
Fred
/|\
/ | \
/ | \
/ | \
bin data plants
|
|
|
results
Figure 1 Example Directory Tree
So, the main login directory (the home directory) for the user fred who
has been allocated to the u1 directory would be /u1/fred. The
full filename for fred's file results1 in the subdirectory
plants would be /u1/fred/plants/results1. Assuming
the user fred was working in the default, home directory, then only
plants/results1 need be used to refer to the file.
The mkdir and rmdir commands should be used
to create and delete directories respectively. See the relevant man
entries for these commands.
The pwd command will display the setting of the current
working directory. This is the directory where files will be read from or
written to if no other directory path information is given on filenames.
To change the current working directory, use the cd command.
This takes one argument, the directory path where you wish to work. The
cd command on its own will move back to your home directory, while
cd .. will move back up one level in the directory tree.
A tilde (~) can be used as a shorthand for a home directory.
For example, if /fred is the home directory, cd ~/progs
will move to /fred/progs. A tilde followed immediately
by a username will be expanded to that user's home directory.