How to use file protocol to access a directory on local system?

Question

like /usr/local?

I tried file:///usr/local but failed

[root@www2 robot]# cd file:///usr/local
-bash: cd: file:///usr/local: No such file or directory

Answer 1

If you have a requirement to be able to access generic URLs from your shell, try using curl as a replacement for your cat:

curl file:///path/to/file.txt
curl http://www.domain.com/file.txt

But as other posters have pointed out, the shell itself doesn't understand URLs.