<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Returns a parent directory's path</title>
</head>
<body><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="function.delete.html">delete</a></div>
<div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="function.disk-free-space.html">disk_free_space</a></div>
<div class="up"><a href="ref.filesystem.html">Filesystem Functions</a></div>
<div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div>
</div><hr /><div id="function.dirname" class="refentry">
<div class="refnamediv">
<h1 class="refname">dirname</h1>
<p class="verinfo">(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)</p><p class="refpurpose"><span class="refname">dirname</span> — <span class="dc-title">Returns a parent directory's path</span></p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 description" id="refsect1-function.dirname-description">
<h3 class="title">Description</h3>
<div class="methodsynopsis dc-description">
<span class="type">string</span> <span class="methodname"><strong>dirname</strong></span>
( <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$path</code></span>
[, <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">int</span> <code class="parameter">$levels</code><span class="initializer"> = 1</span></span>
] )</div>
<p class="para rdfs-comment">
Given a string containing the path of a file or directory, this function
will return the parent directory's path that is
<code class="parameter">levels</code> up from the current directory.
</p>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
<span class="function"><strong>dirname()</strong></span> operates naively on the input string,
and is not aware of the actual filesystem, or path components such
as "<em>..</em>".
</p>
</p></blockquote>
<div class="caution"><strong class="caution">Caution</strong>
<p class="para">
<span class="function"><strong>dirname()</strong></span> is locale aware, so for it to see the
correct directory name with multibyte character paths, the matching locale must
be set using the <span class="function"><a href="function.setlocale.html" class="function">setlocale()</a></span> function.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 parameters" id="refsect1-function.dirname-parameters">
<h3 class="title">Parameters</h3>
<p class="para">
<dl>
<dt>
<code class="parameter">path</code></dt>
<dd>
<p class="para">
A path.
</p>
<p class="para">
On Windows, both slash (<em>/</em>) and backslash
(<em>\</em>) are used as directory separator character. In
other environments, it is the forward slash (<em>/</em>).
</p>
</dd>
<dt>
<code class="parameter">levels</code></dt>
<dd>
<p class="para">
The number of parent directories to go up.
</p>
<p class="para">
This must be an integer greater than 0.
</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 returnvalues" id="refsect1-function.dirname-returnvalues">
<h3 class="title">Return Values</h3>
<p class="para">
Returns the path of a parent directory. If there are no slashes in
<code class="parameter">path</code>, a dot ('<em>.</em>') is returned,
indicating the current directory. Otherwise, the returned string is
<code class="parameter">path</code> with any trailing
<em>/component</em> removed.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 changelog" id="refsect1-function.dirname-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>7.0.0</td>
<td>
Added the optional <code class="parameter">levels</code> parameter.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5.0.0</td>
<td>
<span class="function"><strong>dirname()</strong></span> is now binary safe
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 examples" id="refsect1-function.dirname-examples">
<h3 class="title">Examples</h3>
<p class="para">
<div class="example" id="example-2853">
<p><strong>Example #1 <span class="function"><strong>dirname()</strong></span> example</strong></p>
<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">dirname</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"/etc/passwd"</span><span style="color: #007700">) . </span><span style="color: #0000BB">PHP_EOL</span><span style="color: #007700">;<br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">dirname</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"/etc/"</span><span style="color: #007700">) . </span><span style="color: #0000BB">PHP_EOL</span><span style="color: #007700">;<br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">dirname</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"."</span><span style="color: #007700">) . </span><span style="color: #0000BB">PHP_EOL</span><span style="color: #007700">;<br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">dirname</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"C:\\"</span><span style="color: #007700">) . </span><span style="color: #0000BB">PHP_EOL</span><span style="color: #007700">;<br />echo </span><span style="color: #0000BB">dirname</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"/usr/local/lib"</span><span style="color: #007700">, </span><span style="color: #0000BB">2</span><span style="color: #007700">);</span>
</span>
</code></div>
</div>
<div class="example-contents"><p>The above example will output
something similar to:</p></div>
<div class="example-contents screen">
<div class="cdata"><pre>
/etc
/ (or \ on Windows)
.
C:\
/usr
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 seealso" id="refsect1-function.dirname-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.pathinfo.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">pathinfo()</a> - Returns information about a file path</span></li>
<li class="member"><span class="function"><a href="function.realpath.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">realpath()</a> - Returns canonicalized absolute pathname</span></li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>
</div><hr /><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="function.delete.html">delete</a></div>
<div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="function.disk-free-space.html">disk_free_space</a></div>
<div class="up"><a href="ref.filesystem.html">Filesystem Functions</a></div>
<div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div>
</div></body></html>
