PHP: Returns directory name component of path

Description

string dirname ( string $path )

Given a string containing a path to a file, this function will return the name of the directory.

Parameters

path

A path.

On Windows, both slash (/) and backslash (\) are used as directory separator character. In other environments, it is the forward slash (/).

Return Values

Returns the name of the directory. If there are no slashes in path , a dot ('.') is returned, indicating the current directory. Otherwise, the returned string is path with any trailing /component removed.

ChangeLog

Version Description

5.0.0 dirname() is now binary safe

4.0.3 dirname() was fixed to be POSIX-compliant.

Examples

Example #1 dirname() example


<?php

$path = "/etc/passwd";

$file = dirname($path); // $file is set to "/etc"

?>

Notes

Note: Since PHP 4.3.0, you will often get a slash or a dot back from dirname() in situations where the older functionality would have given you the empty string.

Check the following change example:


<?php



//before PHP 4.3.0

dirname('c:/'); // returned '.'



//after PHP 4.3.0

dirname('c:/x'); // returns 'c:\'

dirname('c:/Temp/x'); // returns 'c:/Temp'

dirname('/x'); // returns '\'



?>

dirname