PHP dirname() Function

Return the path of the parent directory:

<?php
echo dirname("c:/testweb/home.html") . "<br />";
echo dirname("c:/testweb/home.html", 2) . "<br />";
echo dirname("/testweb/home.html");
?>

The output of the code above will be:

c:/testweb
c:
/testweb

Definition and Usage

The dirname() function returns the path of the parent directory.

dirname( path, levels)

Parameter	Description
path	Required. Specifies a path to check
levels	Optional. An integer that specifies the number of parent directories to go up. Default is 1

Return Value:	The path of the parent directory on success
PHP Version:	4.0+
Binary Safe:	Yes, in PHP 5.0
PHP Changelog:	PHP 7.0 - Added the levels parameter