Is there a way to create a URL anchor, <a>, link from within a Markdown file, to another file within the same repository and branch (aka a link relative to the current branch)?
For example, in the master branch I have a README.md file, which I would like do something like:
# My Project
is really really cool. My Project has a subdir named myLib, see below.
## myLib documentation
see documentation [here](myLib/README.md)
This would allow me to link from one .md to another within the same branch and not have to worry about which branch I'm in (avoid having to do an absolute URL that includes the github.com branch name).
Here is a working example of what I mean:
GOTO http://github.com/rynop/testRel, link does not work.
GOTO http://github.com/rynop/testRel/blob/master/README.md, link works.
This is expected because at this point the starting URL is in the branch. Now how do I get it to pick up the current branch in the README.md at the root of the repository?
Update: I opened an issue against GitHub for this feature request.
Update 30th, January 2013, 16 months later:
GitHub Blog Post Relative links in markup files:
Starting today, GitHub supports relative links in markup files.
Now you can link directly between different documentation files, whether you view the documentation on GitHub itself, or locally, using a different markup renderer.
You want examples of link definitions and how they work? Here's some Markdown for you.
Instead of an absolute link:
[a link](https://github.com/user/repo/blob/branch/other_file.md)
…you can use a relative link:
[a relative link](other_file.md)
[a relative link](path%20with%20spaces/other_file.md)
and we'll make sure it gets linked to user/repo/blob/branch/other_file.md.
If you were using a workaround like [a workaround link](repo/blob/master/other_file.md), you'll have to update your documentation to use the new syntax.
This also means your documentation can now easily stand on its own, without always pointing to GitHub.
Marcono1234 adds in the comments
Also useful: When the link starts with a /, it is relative to the root of the repository (regardless of whether the markdown file is nested in subdirectories)
Update December 20th, 2011:
The GitHub markup issue 84 is currently closed by technoweenie, with the comment:
We tried adding a <base> tag for this, but it causes problems with other relative links on the site.
October 12th, 2011:
If you look at the raw source of the README.md of Markdown itself(!), relative paths don't seem to be supported.
You will find references like:
[r2h]: http://github.com/github/markup/tree/master/lib/github/commands/rest2html
[r2hc]: http://github.com/github/markup/tree/master/lib/github/markups.rb#L13
As noted in InvisibleWolf's answer, if the target link is a directory and it has space, then you need to use %20 for each space.
For example, you have a repo like the following:
project/
text.md
subpro/
subtext.md
subsubpro/
subsubtext.md
subsubpro2/
subsubtext2.md
The relative link to subtext.md in text.md might look like this:
[this subtext](subpro/subtext.md)
The relative link to subsubtext.md in text.md might look like this:
[this subsubtext](subpro/subsubpro/subsubtext.md)
The relative link to subtext.md in subsubtext.md might look like this:
[this subtext](../subtext.md)
The relative link to subsubtext2.md in subsubtext.md might look like this:
[this subsubtext2](../subsubpro2/subsubtext2.md)
The relative link to text.md in subsubtext.md might look like this:
[this text](../../text.md)
GitHub could make this a lot better with minimal work. Here is a work-around.
I think you want something more like
[Your Title](your-project-name/tree/master/your-subfolder)
or to point to the README itself
[README](your-project-name/blob/master/your-subfolder/README.md)
As of January 31, 2013 Github markdown supports relative links to files.
[a relative link](markdown_file.md)
However, there are a few deficiencies that have been discussed in this comment thread.
As an alternative, you can use Gitdown to construct full URLs to the repository and even make them branch aware, e.g.
{"gitdown": "gitinfo", "name": "url"} // https://github.com/gajus/gitdown
{"gitdown": "gitinfo", "name": "branch"} // master
Gitdown is a GitHub markdown preprocessor. It streamlines common tasks associated with maintaining a documentation page for a GitHub repository, e.g. generating table of contents, including variables, generating URLs and getting information about the repository itself at the time of processing the input. Gitdown seamlessly integrates with your building scripts.
I am the author of the Gitdown library.
Just wanted to add this because none of the above solutions worked if target link is directory with spaces in it's name. If target link is a directory and it has space then even escaping space with \ doesn't render the link on Github. Only solution worked for me is using %20 for each space.
e.g.: if directory structure is this
Top_dir
|-----README.md
|-----Cur_dir1
|----Dir A
|----README.md
|----Dir B
|----README.md
To make link to Dir A in README.md present in Top_dir you can do this:
[Dir 1](Cur_dir1/Dir%20A)
You can link to file, but not to folders, and keep in mind that, Github will add /blob/master/ before your relative link(and folders lacks that part so they cannot be linked, neither with HTML <a> tags or Markdown link).
So, if we have a file in myrepo/src/Test.java, it will have a url like:
https://github.com/WesternGun/myrepo/blob/master/src/Test.java
And to link it in the readme file, we can use:
[This is a link](src/Test.java)
or: This is a link.
(I guess, master represents the master branch and it differs when the file is in another branch.)
You can use relative URLs from the root of your repo with <a href="">. Assuming your repo is named testRel, put the following in testRel/README.md:
# My Project
is really really cool. My Project has a subdir named myLib, see below.
## myLib docs
see documentation:
* myLib/
* myLib/README.md
This question is pretty old, but it still seems important, as it isn't easy to put relative references from readme.md to wiki pages on Github.
I played around a little bit and this relative link seems to work pretty well:
[Your wiki page](../../wiki/your-wiki-page)
The two ../ will remove /blob/master/ and use your base as a starting point. I haven't tried this on other repositories than Github, though (there may be compatibility issues).
In .md file when you want to create a link to any related files which is related to same project folder or URL based links:
Existing file link:
In .md file add showing name in [] box then open () in this box add / after that it will auto fetch all existing folders name form which you choose your folder then add '/' it will show inner file or 'folders`. This means it will auto fetch the paths and at the end, your URL is created.
Example:
[Enter Showing Name](/users/4000266/heysushil)
This line show like this:
Enter Showing Name
Add URLs on .md file
Follow the same process only change the () box path with URL like this:
[HeySushil - YouTube](https://youtube.com/heysushil)
This looks like HeySushil - YouTube
Note: Remember no need to add force manually after adding / on () box it will auto fetch all existing folders and files.
I am not sure if I see this option here. You can just create a /folder in your repository and use it directly:
[a relative link](/folder/myrelativefile.md)
No blob or tree or repository name is needed, and it works like a charm.
If you want a relative link to your wiki page on GitHub, use this:
Read here: [Some other wiki page](path/to/some-other-wiki-page)
If you want a link to a file in the repository, let us say, to reference some header file, and the wiki page is at the root of the wiki, use this:
Read here: [myheader.h](../tree/master/path/to/myheader.h)
The rationale for the last is to skip the "/wiki" path with "../", and go to the master branch in the repository tree without specifying the repository name, that may change in the future.
The behaviour in Github directory links in markdown files could create some headaches.
All files have an url are starting with blob,
blob/<branch>/<path>/<fileName>
whereas directories have an url starting with tree:
tree/<branch>/<path>
So no relative link to a directory should work. It points to an url that starts with a blob. Magically Github changes some relative path automatically to the tree path. Unfortunately not urls containing ".."
I investigate some time to examine the strange behaviour with Github directory links on https://github.com/fluentcodes/GitSamples-GIT/tree/github-readme-links.
Just follow the format below.
[TEXT TO SHOW](actual URL to navigate)
Here is what I found for relative links in github's .md files:
Relative links without ../ (aka. link to file in the same level, or in sub dir), seems always work.
Relative links that contains ../ works only when you are already in a page whose url contains substring /blob/.
Otherwise need to use full url that contains /blob/, to link.
Actually except top level /README.md, when view any other files, their url already contains /blob/.
Thus probably you can always use relative links that contains ../ in files, except /README.md.
But /README.md is in top level, thus it shouldn't need a relative link that contains ../.
So, you should never need a full path link (that contains github domain) to link to files in the same github repo.
Example (links among multiple language doc)
In /README.md, can use relative links without ../.
[中文](doc/cn/README.md) |
[日本語](doc/jp/README.md)
In /doc/cn/README.md, since when we view it, the url already contains /blob/, thus could use relative links with ../.
[English](../../README.md) |
[日本語](../jp/README.md)
(BTW, the example come from this git-merge-flow repo.)
What I found to work for relative folders:
[link text](subfolder/subsubfolder/relevantfolder/)
where relevant folder is the folder you are trying to link to. The backslash is needed after the folder name. I tried including the project name and tree/main in the path and the other things suggested in previous answers, that lead to a nonexistent page error. The subfolder is a folder within the overall repo project folder.
Thus, file links would be in the form of:
[link text](subfolder/subsubfolder/relevantfolder/index.html)
If the desired file is not in any folder or subfolder the link is simply:
[link text](README.md)
for example the README file is not in any subfolders, so that could be the exact relative link you use for the README file.
You can also insert your links (relative or absolute) at the bottom to reduce clutter in text.
It can also be a good option for repetitive links.
This is [my linked text].
[my linked text]: relative/path/in/repo/to/file.txt "Optional title for mouse hover"
This is my linked text.
Every page on my website has a navbar with some absolute links, to pages like /archive and /atom.xml. These are present on pages like /post/post-title.
In my access logs, I'm seeing heaps of requests for paths like /post/post-title/archive and /post/post-title/atom.xml.
Assuming that I haven't just stuffed up a link somewhere (i.e., missed a slash), is there something else I might be doing wrong that's causing some clients to follow absolute links as if they're relative? Or is it just weird bots being weird?
Links that have the forward slash before it should load at any folder in your web project with the main domain name.
If you have like this:
domain.com/index.php
domain.com/archive/index.php
and both index.php files have the following:
home
archive
all the links in both files are absolute links like:
home
archive
Having relative links could be produced from two issues:
1- Having a ./ rather than / in your links. (And that is the best guess)
2- Bots understands links and love links with "/" not with "http://domain.com/"
but you might uploaded a file with a ./ link before
and bots got it and you have it recorded.
Moreover, relative links are processed inside the main folder which they are inside, for example:
Putting the following:
Other Page
archive
inside:
domain.com/archive/index.php
will leed to:
Other Page
archive
EDIT: ../../ works for href links, but doesn't work for accessing stylesheets or js files.
I have a page in a projects folder, that has this in the heading: <li>Home</li>
When I press the link, it tries to redirect me to projects/index.html, instead of the index.html file in the root folder.
I believe your index html in your project will always be the default landing page. It is hard to troubleshoot this without your file structure but have you tried renaming tour your page something different to index.html to see if the behavior continues without the "index" in it.
The path you show in the comments says that webpage.html is down a level from projects folder.
Try href="../../index.html" to move down two levels.
think of it like this a single ../ gets you out of the page; an additional ../ moves you up out of the directory.
With the paths you provided in the comments:
/index.html
/projects/webpage.html
This is where the links will take you from webpage.html:
/index.html --> /index.html -- absolute path
../index.html --> /projects/index.html -- relative path (NOT WHERE YOU WANT TO BE)
../../index.html --> /index.html -- relative path
you can use either the absolute path or the relative path to link to the index page. I like to use the absolute path to index because my index page is always at the root of my websites. its up to you which you want to use.
When I code my website, on my local computer i can use
blablabla.
However, I also can see this type of thing on other places as
blablabla.
I am not sure what I will need when my site goes live. If I try to do this on my local computer, it doesn't understand it. My question is, if I post my site up like this, will it work?
Ok, if I have all of the files of my site in the root directory that the main index.html file is located in, will it work when it is being hosted?
If you do not use a slash, the link will point to index.html in the same folder as the page the link is on.
For example, if you have a link to index.html on the page www.example.com/page2.html then the link will take you to www.example.com/index.html. If you include a slash, it will do the same thing.
However, if the link is in a page in a subfolder, like www.example.com/projects/page2.html, then the first link will take you to www.example.com/projects/index.html while the second link will still take you to www.example.com/index.html.
The slash denotes the "web root."
Note that these are still considered "relative" links: they refer to a resource on the same server, regardless of the server's name. If your domain name changes or you upload it to another server, relative links will still work provided they have the same folder structure.
I have a hierarchy like:
index.html
/share/index.html
/img/myImage.png
share/index.html is on a sub-domain (http://www.share.foo.com instead of http://www.foo.com).
I would like to access myImage.png from both domains.
So far, I've only been able to find one way to manage this. From index.html I reference the image as:
img/myImage.png
and from /share/index.html I reference the image as:
http://www.foo.com/img/myImage.png
This doesn't feel correct because I shouldn't have to be that explicit with my URL. It should probably be somewhat relative to my own path structure.
I'm wondering what the correct fix here is? Should share/index.html be on the same level as index.html? How would naming conventions work for something like that if they're both supposed to be index.html on the same level? Other suggestions?
To access the image from "index.html" you can use the relative path like you are currently using:
img/myImage.png
However, when you are in the /share/ folder you need to go back a folder:
../img/myImage.png
This is of course assuming your /share/ directory is locate within the root html folder (public_html or whatever yours may be called)
You can use
../img/myImage.png
for getting image in subdomain.
You can use multiple ../ to go back any level in the hierarchy
For eg: ../../ will take two levels back from the current level.
There are two ways to accomplish this
Filesystem way
If the server is on an Unix (Linux) based system, create a symbolic link in /share that points to /img.
From a shell:
~$ cd /docroot/share
~$ ln -s ../img img
This will make all contents of /img appear under /share/img as well.
If you do not have direct shell access to your web-host, you can try creating the symbolic link in your local copy of your /share directory and sync it to the server. To create a symbolic link you do not have to have a copy of the location where it points to on your local computer.
If you are on windows, NTFS supports symbolic links as well, but I can not tell you how that would sync to the web server.
Using relative paths lower than your doc_root (../img/myImage.png) to point to your image from your HTML document, is invalid in this case. It would resolve to: http://www.share.foo.org/../img/myImage.png
<base> tag way
The <base> tag sets the base address where to look for linked content. Downside is: It will form the base for al relative linked content. (Style sheets, images and links). So page linked as <a href=about.hmtl> will point to <base>/about.html.
<head>
<base href="http://www.foo.com/" target="_blank">
</head>
<body>
<img src="img/myImage.png">
</body>