https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451797#M744091 Check this link for more inputs:<BR /><BR /><A href="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse120/resources/primers/unix/lesson5.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse120/resources/primers/unix/lesson5.shtml</A><BR /><BR /><BR />sks Wed, 29 Dec 2004 01:15:47 GMT Sanjay Kumar Suri 2004-12-29T01:15:47Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451793#M744087 Hi,<BR /><BR />I noted that when you do a ls -l under a particular directory, you will get 2 funny directories which are . and .. . What is the purpose of these 2 files? HOw should be the permission be like?<BR /><BR />Thank you.<BR /><BR />regards<BR />Yen Nee Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:47:22 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451793#M744087 Yap Yen Nee 2004-12-28T23:47:22Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451794#M744088 They are not funny.<BR />. means the current directory.<BR />.. means the parent directory.<BR /><BR />One can use $cd .. to jump to the parent directory of the current directory.<BR /><BR />sks Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:16:25 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451794#M744088 Sanjay Kumar Suri 2004-12-29T00:16:25Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451795#M744089 You are seeing . and .. in the output of "ls -l" ?<BR />You surely mean "ls -al", don't you? :-)<BR /><BR />As Sanjay already said, . is current and .. is the<BR />previous directory unless your current directory<BR />is '/', in which case . and .. point to the current<BR />root directory.<BR /><BR />- Biswajit<BR /> Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:55:14 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451795#M744089 Biswajit Tripathy 2004-12-29T00:55:14Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451796#M744090 Hi<BR /><BR />. is current directory<BR />.. is parent directory<BR /><BR />these two will be hidden and craeted by defualt whenever you craete a directory Wed, 29 Dec 2004 01:08:30 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451796#M744090 Ravi_8 2004-12-29T01:08:30Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451797#M744091 Check this link for more inputs:<BR /><BR /><A href="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse120/resources/primers/unix/lesson5.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cse120/resources/primers/unix/lesson5.shtml</A><BR /><BR /><BR />sks Wed, 29 Dec 2004 01:15:47 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451797#M744091 Sanjay Kumar Suri 2004-12-29T01:15:47Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451798#M744092 Put simply the "." and ".." entries are the links/path backs to the level above. They are shown individually like this so that you can see the ownerships and permissions of your current directory and its parent.<BR /> Thu, 30 Dec 2004 02:45:33 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451798#M744092 Andrew Cowan 2004-12-30T02:45:33Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451799#M744093 The permissions of course depends on which directory you are in. <BR />The only way I know to check is to run 'swverify \*' which will then do a check of ALL system files.<BR /><BR />Regards,<BR />Trond Thu, 30 Dec 2004 05:15:49 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-hp-ux/what-is-the-purpose-of-and-in-every-directory/m-p/3451799#M744093 Trond Haugen 2004-12-30T05:15:49Z