Quick Reminder About File Paths

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Chris Coyier on (Updated on )

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Whenever I have a problem with an image “not showing up” on a web page, the first thing I do is take a close look at the file path that references that image. If that file path is relative (meaning that it doesn’t start with http://), I pay extra close attention to the relationship of where the file is that is referencing the image, and where that image actually is.

  • Is the image in the same directory as the file referencing it?
  • Is the image in a directory below?
  • Is the image in a directory above?

By “below” and “above”, I mean subdirectories and parent directories. Relative file paths give us a way to travel in both directions. Take a look at my primitive example:

file-path-example1.jpg

Here is all you need to know about relative file paths:

  • Starting with “/” returns to the root directory and starts there
  • Starting with “../” moves one directory backwards and starts there
  • Starting with “../../” moves two directories backwards and starts there (and so on…)
  • To move forward, just start with the first subdirectory and keep moving forward