Absolute path & Relative Path

Question

What\'s the difference between absolute path & relative path when using any web server or Tomcat?

Answer 1

Absolute paths start with / and refer to a location from the root of the current site (or virtual host).

Relative paths do not start with / and refer to a location from the actual location of the document the reference is made.

Examples, assuming root is http://foo.com/site/

Absolute path, no matter where we are on the site

/foo.html

will refer to http://foo.com/site/foo.html

Relative path, assuming the containing link is located in http://foo.com/site/part1/bar.html

../part2/quux.html

will refer to http://foo.com/site/part2/quux.html

or

part2/blue.html

will refer to http://foo.com/site/part1/part2/blue.html