Understanding physical and virtual paths

After using Dreamweaver to upload your files to a remote server, the files reside in a folder in the server’s local directory tree. For example, on a server running Microsoft IIS, the path to your home page could be as follows:

c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\accounts\users\jsmith\index.htm

This path is known as the physical path to your file.

The URL to open your file, however, does not use the physical path. It uses the name of the server or domain followed by a virtual path, as in the following example:

www.plutoserve.com/jsmith/index.htm

The virtual path, /jsmith/index.htm, stands in for the physical path, c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\accounts\users\jsmith\index.htm.

Related topics

• Finding a file’s physical path with the virtual path
• Using a virtual path to connect to a database