paths...can someone explain

[Anon]

I've never seemed to grasp the whole path thing. Can someone please explain? I'm building a php site on a remote server, and they have a specific path to the include files. I don't know how to get there!

I understand paths perfectly when it's
www.mysite.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/etc.

But when you start with:
./user/local/lib/blahblah
or
.././user/local/lib/blahblah
or
./:/user/local/lib/blahblah

I don't get that at all!

I'm sure it's something very simple. So simple that everyone assumes I must know this info by now, but I don't! Please help.

[[deleted]]

./ means the current directory
../ means the previous directory (one level up)

so if you are in
/a/b/c/d/

and you need a file in /a/b, you call it via ../../
but that get's messy very quickly....