What does realpath do?

Resolve a path to its absolute form Prints the absolute canonical path, resolving symlinks and .. components.

Is realpath dangerous?

LOW risk. Read-only path resolution.

realpath

Resolve a path to its absolute form

low risk

interactive breakdown — edit the command and press Explain

What it does

Prints the absolute canonical path, resolving symlinks and .. components.

Common flags

Flag	Meaning
`-s`	Do not resolve symlinks
`-m`	Allow missing path components
`--relative-to` `--relative-to`	Print path relative to a directory

Examples

realpath ./script.shAbsolute path of a file · explain & risk-check →

realpath --relative-to=/etc /etc/ssh/sshd_configssh/sshd_config · explain & risk-check →

readlink basename

Open the full explainer →More in Files & Archives

Reference text is hand-written and may be incomplete — check man realpath for your version. Test destructive commands on a non-production system first.