Absolute path resolver

I was looked for some utility to resolve absolute path of file or directory. I found namei but it result returns in form

$ namei /etc/gdc
f: /etc/gdc
d /
d etc
l gdc -> /home/hynek/.gdc
d /
d home
d hynek
l .gdc -> work/tiger/bear/common/etc/gdc
  d work
  d tiger
  l bear -> bear.trunk/
    d bear.trunk
  d common
  d etc
  d gdc

but I suspected something more like

$ abs_path /etc/gdc
/home/hynek/work/tiger/bear.trunk/common/etc/gdc

I haven't found anything better than make alias in my ~/.bashrc

alias abs_path='perl -MCwd -le'\''print Cwd::abs_path($_) foreach @ARGV'\'

Edit: As ZD notice readlink -f does same work. Thanks. readlink -m and readlink -e works as well but differs if some parts missing. I have decided to use

alias abs_path='readlink -m'