How to check if two paths are equal in Bash?

Question

What\'s the best way to check if two paths are equal in Bash? For example, given the directory structure

~/
  Desktop/
    Downloads/ (symlink to ~/Downloads         


        

Answer 1

Bash's test commands have a -ef operator for this purpose

if [[ ./ -ef ~ ]]; then ...

if [[ ~/Desktop -ef /home/you/Desktop ]]; then ...

etc...

$ help test | grep -e -ef
      FILE1 -ef FILE2  True if file1 is a hard link to file2.