little oddity I don't understand

[Fedora]

Hello,

I had this strange thing when i was editing a file in vi. I get to root and i am going down the file tree and i have to switch between front / and \ to make it work. Is there a reason to do this.

Code: Select all

root@wood:/home/lincoln# cd
root@mypcname:~# cd /etc
root@mypcname:/etc# cd \apt
root@mypcname:/etc/apt#
 

Why do i have to switch back and forth whats the deal?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The backslash (\) is an escape character so in your example it is effectively ignored.

Code: Select all

empty@thanatos:~ $ cd /etc/                                             
empty@thanatos:/etc $ cd \apt
empty@thanatos:/etc/apt $ cd -
/etc
empty@thanatos:/etc $ cd apt
empty@thanatos:/etc/apt $ cd
empty@thanatos:~ $ cd /etc/apt
empty@thanatos:/etc/apt $ cd
empty@thanatos:~ $ cd /etc
empty@thanatos:/etc $ cd /apt
mksh-static: cd: /apt: No such file or directory
2|empty@thanatos:/etc $

The last command fails because it calls the full path to /apt and there is no such directory.