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

这个答案并没有解决问题的Bash部分，但是因为我试图使用这个问题中的答案在Emacs中实现这个功能，所以我就把它扔到那里。

Emacs实际上有一个开箱即用的函数:

ELISP> (file-relative-name "/a/b/c" "/a/b/c")
"."
ELISP> (file-relative-name "/a/b/c" "/a/b")
"c"
ELISP> (file-relative-name "/a/b/c" "/c/b")
"../../a/b/c"

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

我需要这样的东西，但它也解决了符号链接。我发现pwd有一个-P标志用于此目的。附加了我的脚本的一个片段。它在shell脚本的函数中，因此是$1和$2。结果值是从START_ABS到END_ABS的相对路径，位于UPDIRS变量中。为了执行pwd -P，将脚本cd放入每个参数目录，这也意味着将处理相对路径参数。干杯,吉姆

SAVE_DIR="$PWD"
cd "$1"
START_ABS=`pwd -P`
cd "$SAVE_DIR"
cd "$2"
END_ABS=`pwd -P`

START_WORK="$START_ABS"
UPDIRS=""

while test -n "${START_WORK}" -a "${END_ABS/#${START_WORK}}" '==' "$END_ABS";
do
    START_WORK=`dirname "$START_WORK"`"/"
    UPDIRS=${UPDIRS}"../"
done
UPDIRS="$UPDIRS${END_ABS/#${START_WORK}}"
cd "$SAVE_DIR"

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

}

我使用的macOS默认情况下没有realpath命令，所以我做了一个纯bash函数来计算它。

#!/bin/bash

##
# print a relative path from "source folder" to "target file"
#
# params:
#  $1 - target file, can be a relative path or an absolute path.
#  $2 - source folder, can be a relative path or an absolute path.
#
# test:
#  $ mkdir -p ~/A/B/C/D; touch ~/A/B/C/D/testfile.txt; touch ~/A/B/testfile.txt
#
#  $ getRelativePath ~/A/B/C/D/testfile.txt  ~/A/B
#  $ C/D/testfile.txt
#  
#  $ getRelativePath ~/A/B/testfile.txt  ~/A/B/C
#  $ ../testfile.txt
#
#  $ getRelativePath ~/A/B/testfile.txt  /
#  $ home/bunnier/A/B/testfile.txt 
#
function getRelativePath(){
    local targetFilename=$(basename $1)
    local targetFolder=$(cd $(dirname $1);pwd) # absolute target folder path
    local currentFolder=$(cd $2;pwd) # absulute source folder
    local result=.

    while [ "$currentFolder" != "$targetFolder" ];do
      if [[ "$targetFolder" =~ "$currentFolder"* ]];then
          pointSegment=${targetFolder#$currentFolder}
          result=$result/${pointSegment#/}
          break
      fi  
      result="$result"/..
      currentFolder=$(dirname $currentFolder)
    done

    result=$result/$targetFilename
    echo ${result#./}
}