Having links relative to root?

Html Problem Overview

Is there a way to have all links on a page be relative to the root directory?

For example, on www.example.com/fruits/apples/apple.html I could have a link saying:

<a href="fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

Would this link be pointing to www.example.com/fruits/apples/fruits/index.html or www.example.com/fruits/index.html? If the first, is there a way to have it point to the 2nd instead?

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

A root-relative URL starts with a / character, to look something like <a href="/directoryInRoot/fileName.html">link text</a>.

The link you posted: <a href="fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a> is linking to an html file located in a directory named fruits, the directory being in the same directory as the html page in which this link appears.

To make it a root-relative URL, change it to:

<a href="/fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

Edited in response to question, in comments, from OP:

> So doing / will make it relative to www.example.com, is there a way to specify what the root is, e.g what if i want the root to be www.example.com/fruits in www.example.com/fruits/apples/apple.html?

Yes, prefacing the URL, in the href or src attributes, with a / will make the path relative to the root directory. For example, given the html page at www.example.com/fruits/apples.html, the a of href="/vegetables/carrots.html" will link to the page www.example.com/vegetables/carrots.html.

The base tag element allows you to specify the base-uri for that page (though the base tag would have to be added to every page in which it was necessary for to use a specific base, for this I'll simply cite the W3's example:

> For example, given the following BASE declaration and A declaration:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<HTML>
 <HEAD>
   <TITLE>Our Products</TITLE>
   <BASE href="http://www.aviary.com/products/intro.html">
 </HEAD>

 <BODY>
   <P>Have you seen our <A href="../cages/birds.gif">Bird Cages</A>?
 </BODY>
</HTML>

> the relative URI "../cages/birds.gif" would resolve to:

http://www.aviary.com/cages/birds.gif

Example quoted from: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.4.

Solution 2 - Html

Use

<a href="/fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

<a href="../index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

Solution 3 - Html

If you are creating the URL from the server side of an ASP.NET application, and deploying your website to a virtual directory (e.g. app2) in your website i.e. http://www.yourwebsite.com/app2/

then just insert

<base href="~/" />

just after the title tag.

so whenever you use root relative e.g.

<a href="/Accounts/Login"/>

would resolve to "http://www.yourwebsite.com/app2/Accounts/Login"

This way you can always point to your files relatively-absolutely ;)

To me this is the most flexible solution.

Solution 4 - Html

<a href="/fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

Solution 5 - Html

To give a URL to an image tag which locates images/ directory in the root like

`logo.png`

you should give src URL starting with / as follows:

<img src="/images/logo.png"/>

This code works in any directories without any troubles even if you are in branches/europe/about.php still the logo can be seen right there.

Solution 6 - Html

Relative Path Summary (applicable to href, src etc.,):

/file_Or_FolderName          Root directory
./file_Or_FolderName         Current directory
../file_Or_FolderName        Previous directory (One level up)
../../file_Or_FolderName     Previous of previous directory (Two levels up)
../../../file_Or_FolderName  Just like above - Three levels up

Example:

www.example.com
    ├── apple.html
    └── FolderA
        ├── fileA.html
        └── FolderB
            ├── fileB.html
            └── FolderC
                ├── fileC.html
                └── FolderD       <------ Suppose you're here (current directory)
                    ├── fileD.html
                    └── FolderE
                        └── fileE.html

Following shows how to access the file at different levels using the relative path (applicable to href, src etc.,)

fileD.html                 - same level access(or)
./fileD.html               - same level
./FolderE/fileE.html       - 1 level Down
../fileC.html              - 1 level Up
../../fileB.html           - 2 levels Up
../../../fileA.html        - 3 levels Up
../../../../apple.html     - 4 levels Up (or)
/apple.html                - 4 levels Up but direcly using root /

Solution 7 - Html

Use this code "./" as root on the server as it works for me

<a href="./fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

but when you are on a local machine use the following code "../" as the root relative path

<a href="../fruits/index.html">Back to Fruits List</a>

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Ali	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Html	David Thomas	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Html	amit_g	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Html	A-Majeed	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Html	moe	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Html	Tum Ozel Okullar	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Html	SridharKritha	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Html	king zecole	View Answer on Stackoverflow