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The directory /home/alice/data exists, and the current directory is /home/alice/work. Which of the following is the directory shown when "cd ../data" is run and then "pwd"?

  1. A/data
  2. B/home/alice/data
  3. C/home/alice/work/data
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Answer: B. /home/alice/data

A path that does not start with "/" is a relative path and is interpreted starting from the current directory. ".." means the parent directory, so .. moves from /home/alice/work to /home/alice, and data then leads into /home/alice/data. pwd prints the current directory as an absolute path starting with "/". An absolute path starting with "/" always refers to the same place regardless of the current directory.

  • A. /data is the data directory directly under the root directory. A relative path is interpreted from the current directory, not from "/".
  • B. Correct. .. moves to /home/alice, and from there into data.
  • C. /home/alice/work/data is where "cd data" would go. ".." means going back to the parent directory.
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