(PHP 4, PHP 5)
dirname — Returns directory name component of path
Given a string containing a path to a file, this function will return the name of the directory.
A path.
On Windows, both slash (/) and backslash (\) are used as directory separator character. In other environments, it is the forward slash (/).
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.
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.0.0 | dirname() is now binary safe |
| 4.0.3 | dirname() was fixed to be POSIX-compliant. |
Example #1 dirname() example
<?php
$path = "/etc/passwd";
$file = dirname($path); // $file is set to "/etc"
?>
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 '\'
?>