php man page for dirname

DIRNAME(3)								 1								DIRNAME(3)

dirname - Returns parent directory's path

SYNOPSIS
       string dirname (string  $path)

DESCRIPTION
	Given a string containing the path of a file or directory, this function will return the parent directory's path.

PARAMETERS
	      o $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 path of the parent 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(3) is now binary safe |
       |	|				|
       +--------+-------------------------------+
EXAMPLES
       Example #1

	      dirname(3) example

	      <?php
	      echo "1) " . dirname("/etc/passwd") . PHP_EOL; // 1) /etc
	      echo "2) " . dirname("/etc/") . PHP_EOL; // 2) / (or  on Windows)
	      echo "3) " . dirname("."); // 3) .
	      ?>

NOTES
       Note

	      dirname(3) operates naively on the input string, and is not aware of the actual filesystem, or path components such as " ..".

       Note

	      dirname(3)  is locale aware, so for it to see the correct directory name with multibyte character paths, the matching locale must be
	      set using the setlocale(3) function.

       Note

	       Since PHP 4.3.0, you will often get a slash or a dot back from dirname(3) 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 ''

       ?>

SEE ALSO
       basename(3), pathinfo(3), realpath(3).

PHP Documentation Group 														DIRNAME(3)