The Parent Directory

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  • Essential Linux
    • The Unix File Structure
      • The Parent Directory

The parent directory is the directory above the current directory in the naming tree. For example, if your current directory is /home/john/projects then the parent directory is /users/john. Your parent directory may be referred to as .. (double dot).

In any directory if you type ls with the option '-a', you will see two directories called '.' and '..'. The '.' directory is the current directory and the '..' directory is actually the directory above.

% ls -a
.       ..      .login   .cshrc
myfile  myfile2 yearfile yearfile2