# How to require file via absolute and relative paths in Crystal?

**URL:** <https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/how-to-require-file-via-absolute-and-relative-paths-in-crystal/1582>\
**Category:** Help & Support\
**Created:** [January 4, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/how-to-require-file-via-absolute-and-relative-paths-in-crystal/1582 "2020-01-04T17:15:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alexeypetrushin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.crystal-lang.org/alexeypetrushin/32/492_2.png) [@alexeypetrushin](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/u/alexeypetrushin)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/how-to-require-file-via-absolute-and-relative-paths-in-crystal/1582/1 "2020-01-04T17:15:06Z")

</div>

There’s a file, just a single file, there’s no shards or anything else.

```
/alex/projects/inspector/inspector.cr

```

I want to require it in another file in another folder

```
/alex/projects/my-project/play.cr

```

This won’t work

```
require "/alex/projects/inspector/inspector"
require "/alex/projects/inspector/inspector.cr"

```

This also not working

```
CRYSTAL_PATH=$CRYSTAL_ROOT/src:lib:/alex/projects/inspector

require "inspector"
require "inspector.cr"
require "./inspector"
require "./inspector.cr"

```

P.S.

I would like to **avoid using shards** etc. as I have no plans to share that file or publish it. It’s just a file that used by couple of other files in different locations.

I solved it by creating symlink

```
ln -s /alex/projects/inspector/inspector.cr /alex/projects/my-project/inspector.cr

require "./inspector"
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![straight-shoota](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.crystal-lang.org/straight-shoota/32/36_2.png) [@straight-shoota](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/u/straight-shoota)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/how-to-require-file-via-absolute-and-relative-paths-in-crystal/1582/2 "2020-01-04T17:22:22Z")

</div>

You can use relative paths, see [documentation about requiring files](https://crystal-lang.org/reference/syntax_and_semantics/requiring_files.html): `require "../inspector/inspector"` should work.