greycat 1174421633 learn .. refers to the parent directory. Relative pathnames like ../foo/bar cannot be converted into absolute pathnames in the general case -- see http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/lexnames.html to understand why. Also see http://wooledge.org/mywiki/BashFaq#faq28 greycat 1472658054 forget greycat 1472658055 learn .. refers to the parent directory. Relative pathnames like ../foo/bar cannot be converted into absolute pathnames in the general case -- see http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/lexnames to understand why. Also see http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/028