How to get full path of a file?

Question

Is there an easy way I can print the full path of file.txt ?

file.txt = /nfs/an/disks/jj/home/dir/file.txt

The

Answer 1

This worked pretty well for me. It doesn't rely on the file system (a pro/con depending on need) so it'll be fast; and, it should be portable to most any *NIX. It does assume the passed string is indeed relative to the PWD and not some other directory.

function abspath () {
   echo $1 | awk '\
      # Root parent directory refs to the PWD for replacement below
      /^\.\.\// { sub("^", "./") } \
      # Replace the symbolic PWD refs with the absolute PWD \
      /^\.\//   { sub("^\.", ENVIRON["PWD"])} \
      # Print absolute paths \
      /^\//   {print} \'
}