pathname:

See the note at the bottom of this page.

A pathname is part of a fully qualified filename (or full pathname). A pathname specifies the names of the directories which must be "traversed" to get to a specific directory or file. A pathname can either be an absolute pathname or a relative pathname.

Here is an example of a fully qualified filename:

• /home/user01/testfile.txt

In this case, the pathname is /home/user01 meaning that the file testfile.txt is located in the user01 directory of the home directory. (It is an absolute pathname.)

Note: see http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/pathname.html -- my definition is inconsistent with this, and, so far, I'm not really sure which is right (or best) -- is a pathname an alternate name for a filename (i.e., including a filename), or is a pathname just the name of a path, without a filename?

Once I resolve the above, I probably have several definitions to revise. In fact, I'm going to stop defining things like filename, path, pathname, etc. until I resolve this -- but I'll probably go on to tree and similar things rather than thoroughly research that point at this time.

Contributors

• RandyKramer - 29 Jan 2002
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