Every file-system object (file or folder) has a path associated with it, which indicates to the system where the object is stored so that it can be referenced from applications.

The path consists of all the directories that must be opened to get to a particular file. (Directories are the physical representations of &link_folders; on disk.)

A fully qualified path consists of the drive name, followed by a colon (:), an initial backslash (\) to indicate the root directory, plus a list of directories that must be opened to get to the object, each separated by another backslash.

If the path points to a file, for example a data file or program file, it is followed by the file name. For example, the &os2; &eexe; resides in the OS2 directory on the boot drive. Its full path is:

    X:\OS2\E.EXE
where X: is the drive letter of your boot drive.

&os2; has several system paths which specify where the system should look for files if a path is not supplied with a file. See "System paths" for more explanations.