Expand a possible relative path in bash

As arguments to my script there are some file paths. Those can, of course, be relative (or contain ~). But for the functions I've written I need paths that are absolute, but do not have their symlinks resolved.

Is there any function for this?

MY_PATH=$(readlink -f $YOUR_ARG) will resolve relative paths like "./" and "../"

Consider this as well (source):

#!/bin/bash
dir_resolve()
{
cd "$1" 2>/dev/null || return $?  # cd to desired directory; if fail, quell any error messages but return exit status
echo "`pwd -P`" # output full, link-resolved path
}

# sample usage
if abs_path="`dir_resolve \"$1\"`"
then
echo "$1 resolves to $abs_path"
echo pwd: `pwd` # function forks subshell, so working directory outside function is not affected
else
echo "Could not reach $1"
fi

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/bash-script-return-full-path-and-filename-680368/page3.html has the following

function abspath {
    if [[ -d "$1" ]]
    then
        pushd "$1" >/dev/null
        pwd
        popd >/dev/null
    elif [[ -e "$1" ]]
    then
        pushd "$(dirname "$1")" >/dev/null
        echo "$(pwd)/$(basename "$1")"
        popd >/dev/null
    else
        echo "$1" does not exist! >&2
        return 127
    fi
}

which uses pushd/popd to get into a state where pwd is useful.