What directory is //

Question

$ cd /
/$ ls
bin   dev  home        initrd.img.old  lib64       media  opt   root  sbin  sys  usr  vmlinuz
boot  etc  initrd.img  lib             lost+found  mnt    proc  run   srv   tmp  var  vmlinuz.old

/$ cd //
//$ ls
bin   dev  home        initrd.img.old  lib64       media  opt   root  sbin  sys  usr  vmlinuz
boot  etc  initrd.img  lib             lost+found  mnt    proc  run   srv   tmp  var  vmlinuz.old
//$ pwd
//

//$ cd ///
/$
/$ pwd
/

What is this trickery? What is //?

@JeffSchaller the linked question indicates that A pathname that begins with two successive slashes may be interpreted in an implementation-defined manner, although more than two leading slashes shall be treated as a single slash. I am still curious as to why Linux implements in this way. Why the complexity of special behaviour? Only because it is permitted by the standard? Are there any non-obvious differences between the / and // directory? — Vorac, May 29 '18 at 01:14
an ls -lid / // would probably show the same inode --> the same directory. Per the linked duplicate, There is one exception: if a pathname starts with exactly two slashes, it may be treated differently (ref: base definitions §4.11 pathname resolution). Linux itself doesn't do this — Jeff Schaller, May 29 '18 at 01:35
"What you're seeing is not, in fact, Linux doing anything special with //: it's bash's current directory tracking" — muru, May 29 '18 at 03:00

What directory is //

0 Answers0