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<title>Returns canonicalized absolute pathname</title>
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<div class="refnamediv">
<h1 class="refname">realpath</h1>
<p class="verinfo">(PHP 4, PHP 5)</p><p class="refpurpose"><span class="refname">realpath</span> — <span class="dc-title">Returns canonicalized absolute pathname</span></p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 description" id="refsect1-function.realpath-description">
<h3 class="title">Description</h3>
<div class="methodsynopsis dc-description">
<span class="type">string</span> <span class="methodname"><strong>realpath</strong></span>
( <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$path</code></span>
)</div>
<p class="para rdfs-comment">
<span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> expands all symbolic links and
resolves references to '/./', '/../' and extra '/' characters in
the input <em><code class="parameter">path</code></em> and returns the canonicalized
absolute pathname.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 parameters" id="refsect1-function.realpath-parameters">
<h3 class="title">Parameters</h3>
<p class="para">
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">path</code></em></span>
<dd>
<p class="para">
The path being checked.
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
Whilst a path must be supplied, the value can be blank or <strong><code>NULL</code></strong>
In these cases, the value is interpreted as the current directory.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
</p>
</dd>
</dt>
</dl>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 returnvalues" id="refsect1-function.realpath-returnvalues">
<h3 class="title">Return Values</h3>
<p class="para">
Returns the canonicalized absolute pathname on success. The resulting path
will have no symbolic link, '/./' or '/../' components.
</p>
<p class="para">
<span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> returns <strong><code>FALSE</code></strong> on failure, e.g. if
the file does not exist.
</p>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
The running script must have executable permissions on all directories in
the hierarchy, otherwise <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> will return
<strong><code>FALSE</code></strong>.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>: <span class="simpara">
Because PHP's integer type is signed and many platforms use 32bit integers,
some filesystem functions may return unexpected results for files which
are larger than 2GB.
</span></p></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 changelog" id="refsect1-function.realpath-changelog">
<h3 class="title">Changelog</h3>
<p class="para">
<table class="doctable informaltable">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Version</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr>
<td>5.3.0</td>
<td>
Prior to this release, if only the last <em><code class="parameter">path</code></em>
component did not exist, <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> would not fail on
*BSD systems. <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> now fails in this case.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5.0.0</td>
<td>
Prior to this release, a blank or <strong><code>NULL</code></strong> <em><code class="parameter">path</code></em> would
cause <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> to return the directory name of the script.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 examples" id="refsect1-function.realpath-examples">
<h3 class="title">Examples</h3>
<p class="para">
<div class="example" id="example-2426">
<p><strong>Example #1 <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> example</strong></p>
<div class="example-contents">
<div class="phpcode"><code><span style="color: #000000">
<span style="color: #0000BB"><?php<br />chdir</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'/var/www/'</span><span style="color: #007700">);<br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">realpath</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'./../../etc/passwd'</span><span style="color: #007700">);<br /></span><span style="color: #0000BB">?></span>
</span>
</code></div>
</div>
<div class="example-contents"><p>The above example will output:</p></div>
<div class="example-contents screen">
<div class="cdata"><pre>
/etc/passwd
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="example" id="example-2427">
<p><strong>Example #2 <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> on Windows</strong></p>
<div class="example-contents"><p>
On windows <span class="function"><strong>realpath()</strong></span> will change unix style paths to
windows style.
</p></div>
<div class="example-contents">
<div class="phpcode"><code><span style="color: #000000">
<span style="color: #0000BB"><?php<br /></span><span style="color: #007700">echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">realpath</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'/windows/system32'</span><span style="color: #007700">);<br /></span><span style="color: #0000BB">?></span>
</span>
</code></div>
</div>
<div class="example-contents"><p>The above example will output:</p></div>
<div class="example-contents screen">
<div class="cdata"><pre>
C:\WINDOWS\System32
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 seealso" id="refsect1-function.realpath-seealso">
<h3 class="title">See Also</h3>
<p class="para">
<ul class="simplelist">
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.basename.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">basename()</a> - Returns trailing name component of path</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.dirname.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">dirname()</a> - Returns parent directory's path</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.pathinfo.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">pathinfo()</a> - Returns information about a file path</span></li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>
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