# dirname

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

dirname — 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 '\'
?>`

### See Also

- basename()
- pathinfo()
- realpath()