list full path of file without tying it from relative relative path

Question

I could do this

root@server [/home/user/public_html]# ls /home/user/public_html/.htaccess 

but I'd like to do this

ls --switch .htaccess
/home/user/public_html/.htaccess

is it possible?

Answer 1

Using find in combination with pwd is a fine answer but it creates two subshells and isn't necessary. There is a command which will do what you want:

readlink -f .htaccess

Output

$ cd /tmp && touch foo
$ ls ./foo
./foo
$ readlink -f ./foo
/tmp/foo

Answer 2

You will have to use find and pwd.

Something like:

find `pwd` -name .htaccess -maxdepth 1

OR

From this answer:

ls -d `pwd`/.htaccess

You could use the $PWD variable to cut out unwanted subshells:

find $PWD -name .htaccess -maxdepth 1
ls -d $PWD/.htaccess

See Also:

• How can I list files with their absolute path in linux?
• ls -R --fullpath | grep filename

Answer 3

realpath exists for this purpose (finding canonical absolute paths):

$ realpath .htaccess
/home/user/public_html/.htaccess