kasku和Pini的答案略有改进，空格更好，允许传递相对路径:

#!/bin/bash
# both $1 and $2 are paths
# returns $2 relative to $1
absolute=`readlink -f "$2"`
current=`readlink -f "$1"`
# Perl is magic
# Quoting horror.... spaces cause problems, that's why we need the extra " in here:
relative=$(perl -MFile::Spec -e "print File::Spec->abs2rel(q($absolute),q($current))")

echo $relative

下面是一个shell脚本，它可以在不调用其他程序的情况下完成:

#! /bin/env bash 

#bash script to find the relative path between two directories

mydir=${0%/}
mydir=${0%/*}
creadlink="$mydir/creadlink"

shopt -s extglob

relpath_ () {
        path1=$("$creadlink" "$1")
        path2=$("$creadlink" "$2")
        orig1=$path1
        path1=${path1%/}/
        path2=${path2%/}/

        while :; do
                if test ! "$path1"; then
                        break
                fi
                part1=${path2#$path1}
                if test "${part1#/}" = "$part1"; then
                        path1=${path1%/*}
                        continue
                fi
                if test "${path2#$path1}" = "$path2"; then
                        path1=${path1%/*}
                        continue
                fi
                break
        done
        part1=$path1
        path1=${orig1#$part1}
        depth=${path1//+([^\/])/..}
        path1=${path2#$path1}
        path1=${depth}${path2#$part1}
        path1=${path1##+(\/)}
        path1=${path1%/}
        if test ! "$path1"; then
                path1=.
        fi
        printf "$path1"

}

relpath_test () {
        res=$(relpath_ /path1/to/dir1 /path1/to/dir2 )
        expected='../dir2'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        res=$(relpath_ / /path1/to/dir2 )
        expected='path1/to/dir2'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        res=$(relpath_ /path1/to/dir2 / )
        expected='../../..'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        res=$(relpath_ / / )
        expected='.'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        res=$(relpath_ /path/to/dir2/dir3 /path/to/dir1/dir4/dir4a )
        expected='../../dir1/dir4/dir4a'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        res=$(relpath_ /path/to/dir1/dir4/dir4a /path/to/dir2/dir3 )
        expected='../../../dir2/dir3'
        test_results "$res" "$expected"

        #res=$(relpath_ . /path/to/dir2/dir3 )
        #expected='../../../dir2/dir3'
        #test_results "$res" "$expected"
}

test_results () {
        if test ! "$1" = "$2"; then
                printf 'failed!\nresult:\nX%sX\nexpected:\nX%sX\n\n' "$@"
        fi
}

#relpath_test

来源:http://www.ynform.org/w/Pub/Relpath

这是对@pini目前评分最高的解决方案(遗憾的是，它只处理少数情况)的更正，全功能改进

提醒:'-z'测试如果字符串是零长度(=空)，'-n'测试如果字符串不是空。

# both $1 and $2 are absolute paths beginning with /
# returns relative path to $2/$target from $1/$source
source=$1
target=$2

common_part=$source # for now
result="" # for now

while [[ "${target#$common_part}" == "${target}" ]]; do
    # no match, means that candidate common part is not correct
    # go up one level (reduce common part)
    common_part="$(dirname $common_part)"
    # and record that we went back, with correct / handling
    if [[ -z $result ]]; then
        result=".."
    else
        result="../$result"
    fi
done

if [[ $common_part == "/" ]]; then
    # special case for root (no common path)
    result="$result/"
fi

# since we now have identified the common part,
# compute the non-common part
forward_part="${target#$common_part}"

# and now stick all parts together
if [[ -n $result ]] && [[ -n $forward_part ]]; then
    result="$result$forward_part"
elif [[ -n $forward_part ]]; then
    # extra slash removal
    result="${forward_part:1}"
fi

echo $result

测试用例:

compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A"           -->  "../.."
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B"         -->  ".."
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B/C"       -->  ""
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B/C/D"     -->  "D"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B/C/D/E"   -->  "D/E"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B/D"       -->  "../D"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/B/D/E"     -->  "../D/E"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/D"         -->  "../../D"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/A/D/E"       -->  "../../D/E"
compute_relative.sh "/A/B/C" "/D/E/F"       -->  "../../../D/E/F"

这个脚本只对路径名有效。它不需要任何文件存在。如果传递的路径不是绝对的，那么行为就有点不寻常，但是如果两条路径都是相对的，那么应该能正常工作。

我只在OS X上测试过，所以可能不太便携。

#!/bin/bash
set -e
declare SCRIPT_NAME="$(basename $0)"
function usage {
    echo "Usage: $SCRIPT_NAME <base path> <target file>"
    echo "       Outputs <target file> relative to <base path>"
    exit 1
}

if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then usage; fi

declare base=$1
declare target=$2
declare -a base_part=()
declare -a target_part=()

#Split path elements & canonicalize
OFS="$IFS"; IFS='/'
bpl=0;
for bp in $base; do
    case "$bp" in
        ".");;
        "..") let "bpl=$bpl-1" ;;
        *) base_part[${bpl}]="$bp" ; let "bpl=$bpl+1";;
    esac
done
tpl=0;
for tp in $target; do
    case "$tp" in
        ".");;
        "..") let "tpl=$tpl-1" ;;
        *) target_part[${tpl}]="$tp" ; let "tpl=$tpl+1";;
    esac
done
IFS="$OFS"

#Count common prefix
common=0
for (( i=0 ; i<$bpl ; i++ )); do
    if [ "${base_part[$i]}" = "${target_part[$common]}" ] ; then
        let "common=$common+1"
    else
        break
    fi
done

#Compute number of directories up
let "updir=$bpl-$common" || updir=0 #if the expression is zero, 'let' fails

#trivial case (after canonical decomposition)
if [ $updir -eq 0 ]; then
    echo .
    exit
fi

#Print updirs
for (( i=0 ; i<$updir ; i++ )); do
    echo -n ../
done

#Print remaining path
for (( i=$common ; i<$tpl ; i++ )); do
    if [ $i -ne $common ]; then
        echo -n "/"
    fi
    if [ "" != "${target_part[$i]}" ] ; then
        echo -n "${target_part[$i]}"
    fi
done
#One last newline
echo

我的解决方案:

computeRelativePath() 
{

    Source=$(readlink -f ${1})
    Target=$(readlink -f ${2})

    local OLDIFS=$IFS
    IFS="/"

    local SourceDirectoryArray=($Source)
    local TargetDirectoryArray=($Target)

    local SourceArrayLength=$(echo ${SourceDirectoryArray[@]} | wc -w)
    local TargetArrayLength=$(echo ${TargetDirectoryArray[@]} | wc -w)

    local Length
    test $SourceArrayLength -gt $TargetArrayLength && Length=$SourceArrayLength || Length=$TargetArrayLength


    local Result=""
    local AppendToEnd=""

    IFS=$OLDIFS

    local i

    for ((i = 0; i <= $Length + 1 ; i++ ))
    do
            if [ "${SourceDirectoryArray[$i]}" = "${TargetDirectoryArray[$i]}" ]
            then
                continue    
            elif [ "${SourceDirectoryArray[$i]}" != "" ] && [ "${TargetDirectoryArray[$i]}" != "" ] 
            then
                AppendToEnd="${AppendToEnd}${TargetDirectoryArray[${i}]}/"
                Result="${Result}../"               

            elif [ "${SourceDirectoryArray[$i]}" = "" ]
            then
                Result="${Result}${TargetDirectoryArray[${i}]}/"
            else
                Result="${Result}../"
            fi
    done

    Result="${Result}${AppendToEnd}"

    echo $Result

}

使用GNU coreutils 8.23中的realpath是最简单的，我认为:

$ realpath --relative-to="$file1" "$file2"

例如:

$ realpath --relative-to=/usr/bin/nmap /tmp/testing
../../../tmp/testing