Having links relative to root?

Question

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 li

Answer 1

A root-relative URL starts with a / character, to look something like link text.

The link you posted: Back to Fruits List 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:

Back to Fruits List

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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:

 
   
   
 

 
   
Have you seen our Bird Cages?
 

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.

Suggested reading:

• http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/linking.php
• http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=AEDCC52C4AD230AD