In computing, a relative path is a path relative to the current working directory.

Example

Here is an example using a Unix / Linux file system:

Your current working directory is:

 /users/mark/

You want to change your current working directory to:

 /users/mark/bobapples

At that moment, the relative path for the directory you want is:

 bobapples

and the absolute path for the directory you want is

 /users/mark/bobapples

Because bobapples is the relative path for the directory you want, you may type the following at the CLI to change your current working directory to bobapples:

 cd bobapples

Two dots are used for moving up in the hierarchy, to indicate the parent directory.