PHP: dirname - Manual

User Contributed Notes
dirname

Holger Thölking
27-Apr-2005 05:31


If you merely want to find out wether a certain file is located within or underneath a certain directory or not, e.g. for White List validation, the following function might be useful to you:



<?php

  function in_dir ($file, $in_dir)

  {

      $dir    = realpath ($file);

      $in_dir = realpath ($in_dir);



      if (!is_dir ($file)) {

          $dir = dirname ($file);

      }



      do {

          if ($dir === $in_dir) {

              $is_in_dir = TRUE;

              break;

          }

      } while ($dir !== ($dir = dirname ($dir)));



      return (bool) @$is_in_dir;

  }

?>

Jaxolotl
23-Feb-2005 11:34


A simple way to have the complete URI of your actual "browsed" page for, as example, W3C css-validation link, or any time you need it,  is:



$my_uri = "http://" . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["SCRIPT_NAME"];



then



<?php echo ("$my_uri");?>   as needed

23-Jan-2005 07:09


<<The path '/home/users/bob/' refers to the file 'bob' in directory '/home/users/', not the file '' in directory '/home/users/bob/.'>>, in fact no, it's the same thing.

not AT available DOT com
07-Jan-2005 11:13


There is no distinction between a directory and a file. This is how dirname() and basename() work. A directory *is* a file. 



There is no such thing as a path to a non-existing file. The path '/home/users/bob/' refers to the file 'bob' in directory '/home/users/', not the file '' in directory '/home/users/bob/'. This is trivial.



Given the path '/etc/conf/sample', there is no way of determining whether 'sample' is a file or a directory just by looking at it. Think about that.

temposeb at free dot fr
06-Jun-2004 04:33


Doc : Ť Given a string containing a path to a file ť

You _must_ specify a filename. Take care if you don't do that...



<?php

    echo dirname('/folder/anotherone/') ;

?>



... will output "/folder" and not "/folder/anotherone"

zippy wonder idiot at yahoo dot com
23-Mar-2004 04:40


Andrew,



There are certainly good reasons to use relative includes, though I agree they usually should not be used exclusively.  Here's a couple of common situations:



1) You do not have control over the web server on which you're developing.  If you want your pages to work even if your {ISP,employer,friend,etc.} rearranges their server -- particularly Apache's user_dir -- then relative includes are the way to go.  Your pages will work if they're at "http://www.host.tld/~user/", "http://host.tld/user/", or even "http://user.host.tld/".



2) You are developing a script or set of scripts for distribution.  You don't want to force your users to rearrange their web server to allow includes from /includes/my-files before they can use your script, after all.



On my own server, for example, I keep all site-wide PHP and JavaScript in /scripts so that I don't have to worry about where they're being called from.  The include files used by my media library, however, are in a scripts subdirectory of the folder the main script runs in.  This also makes development easier; the development and production versions simply reside in different folders, allowing them to use different versions of the include files without altering the include statements.

andrew at i dot love dot spam dot majiclab dot com
29-Jan-2004 01:24


I am not understanding why everyone seems to want to use relative includes so much.



<?php

include("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/includes/my_include.php");

?>



That will work in any script that is in any single folder on your entire website.  No relative paths to mess with.  You can just put all your includes in the same folder, and have different names for them if you want.

soywiz at hotmail dot com
01-Jan-2004 08:41


You can use it to get parent directory:



dirname(dirname(__FILE__))



...include a file relative to file path:



include(dirname(__FILE__) . '/path/relative/file_to_include.php');



..etc.

degoede at tomaatnet dot nl
26-Jun-2003 09:58


Easy to have config functionality using dirname function.



inc.config.php:

===============================

/* UNC path to include file, plus trailing slash.

Convert back-slashes to slashes, always, on linux there will be none to replace, but who cares.

Use str_replace, as this is the fastest on simple replacements, according to php.net. */

$unc = str_replace( "\\\\", "/", dirname( __FILE__ ) . "/" ) ;



/* Remove the UNC path to this file from the UNC path to the main php script that included this file, only keeping any subfolder names, relative to this file's UNC. */

$url = str_replace( $unc, "", $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"] ? $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"] : $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["SCRIPT_FILENAME"] ) ;



/* Remove the value obtained from the calling php script's URL, to get the URL to this file.*/

$url = str_replace( $url, "", $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] ? $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] : $HTTP_SERVER_VARS["SCRIPT_NAME"] ) ;



/* Make a general purpose configuration data array. */

$Config["root"]["unc"] = $unc ;

$Config["root"]["url"] = $url ;

$Config["dir"]["images"] = "images/" ;

$Config["dir"]["include"] = "include/" ;



/* use functions to keep the interface simple and, seperate interface from internal functioning. */

function get_fullpath( $type, $dir )

{

    global $Config ;



    $FullPath = $Config["root"][$type] ;

    $FullPath .= $Config["dir"][$dir] ;



    return ( $FullPath ) ;

}



function get_unc( $dir, $file )

{

    return ( get_fullpath( "unc", $dir ) . $file ) ;

}



function get_url( $dir, $file )

{

    return ( get_fullpath( "url", $dir ) . $file ) ;

}



some_file.php:

===============================

include_once ( ../../inc.config.php ) ;

include_once ( get_unc( "include", "inc.some_include.php" ) ) ;



Now you only need to worry about a relative path once.

philb at gmx dot net
24-May-2003 10:37


<?php



// if you like put this into an include file



function ShowDirModTime($FullPath) { 



  $BasePath = dirname ($FullPath);

  $time = filectime($BasePath); 



    $time=time()-$time; 



    $weeks=$time/604800; 

    $days=($time%604800)/86400; 

    $hours=(($time%604800)%86400)/3600; 

    $minutes=((($time%604800)%86400)%3600)/60; 

    $seconds=(((($time%604800)%86400)%3600)%60); 



    $timestring='[ ';

        if(round($days)) $timestring.=round($days)."d "; 

        if(round($hours)) $timestring.=round($hours)."h "; 

        if(round($minutes)) $timestring.=round($minutes)."m "; 

        if(!round($minutes)&&!round($hours)&&!round($days)) $timestring.="".round($seconds)."s "; 

    $timestring.=']'; 



  echo $timestring;    

} 

?>



<?php



// execute like this...



    echo "dir last updated ";

    ShowDirModTime($HTTP_SERVER_VARS["PATH_TRANSLATED"]); 

?>

info at gieson dot com
14-May-2003 08:40


This one will put both the "www" and "file" path into an easy to transport array. 





<?php


// build the www path:


$me = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];


$Apathweb = explode("/", $me);


$myFileName = array_pop($Apathweb);


$pathweb = implode("/", $Apathweb);


$myURL = "http://".$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$pathweb."/".$myFileName;


$PAGE_BASE['www'] = $myURL;





// build the file path:


strstr( PHP_OS, "WIN") ? $strPathSeparator = "\\" : $strPathSeparator = "/";


$pathfile = getcwd ();


$PAGE_BASE['physical'] = $pathfile.$strPathSeparator.$myFileName;





// this is so you can verify the results:


$www = $PAGE_BASE['www'];


$physical = $PAGE_BASE['physical'];





echo "$physical<p>";


echo "$www<p>";


?>





The following will return something like:





Windows:


F:\dev\Inetpub\wwwroot\somedirectory\index.php


http://devserver/somedirectory/index.php





Unix:


/home/somepathto/gieson.com/webroot/index.php


http://www.gieson.com/index.php

*~^-+=:[*_*]:=+-^~*
21-Feb-2003 10:00


My name is Alex but you can call me WindEagle

my website is windeagle.tk

my email is az[at]windeagle.tk



jon at PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ME sdsc edu

here is a better version of your script



function PATH($DIR,$URL){

$DIR=preg_split("/[\/\\\]/",dirname($DIR));

$URL=preg_split("/[\/\\\]/",dirname($URL));

$cDIR = count($DIR);

$cURL = count($URL);

$min = min($cDIR, $cURL);



for($x=1;$x<=$min;$x++){

if($DIR[$cDIR-$x]==$URL[$cURL-$x]){        // path matches

unset($DIR[$cDIR-$x],$URL[$cURL-$x]);    // erase any common elements

}else{break;}}                // all that's left is uncommon elements



// just incase $DIR or $URL equals "//"

$DIR = ereg_replace("//","/",join('/',$DIR)."/");

$URL = ereg_replace("//","/",join('/',$URL)."/");



return array("DIR" => $DIR,"URL" => $URL);}



example:



lets say that

for Win32

$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']="C:\web\path\cgi-bin\script.php"

for Unix

$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']="/web/path/cgi-bin/script.php"



$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']="/~sn/cgi-bin/script.php"



PATH($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'],$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])



return:



Array

(

for Win32

    [DIR] => C:/web/path/

for Unix

    [DIR] => /web/path/



    [URL] => /~sn/

)

jon at PLEASE DO NOT SPAM ME sdsc edu
14-Feb-2003 03:22


Here's a lil' code I cooked up to figure out the base directories, as far as filesystem vs. URLs.  This is very helpful for, say an image that you want to use getimagesize(); on, but only have the URL oriented directory.  You can then use str_replace(); or preg_replace(); and swap the values out easily!



Note that in order for it to work, you must include the pointer ($big = &$y), rather than simply copying ($big = $y).



// separate each dir into array elements

$x = explode('/', dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']));

$y = explode('/', dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']));

$countX = count($x);

$countY = count($y);

$max = max($countX, $countY);

$min = min($countX, $countY);

$dif = $max-$min;



if (isset($x[$max-1])) {  // $x is the biggest

    $big = &$x;         // make $big a pointer to $x

    $lil = &$y;           // make $lil a pointer to $y

} else {                  // $y is the biggest

    $big = &$y;         // make $big a pointer to $y

    $lil = &$x;           // make $lil a pointer to $x

}



for($i=$max-1;$i>=$dif; $i--) {

    if ($big[$i]==$lil[$i-$dif]) {        // path matches

        unset($big[$i], $lil[$i-$dif]);  // erase any common elements

    }

}

// all that's left is uncommon elements, join array(s)

$root_dir = join('/', $x).'/';

$root_url = join('/', $y).'/';

andrey at php dot net
14-Jan-2003 09:02


Code for write permissions check:

error_reporting(E_ALL);

$dir_name = '/var/www/virtual/phpintra/htdocs/php/';

do {

    $b_is_writable = is_writable($dir_name);

    echo sprintf("Dir[%s]Writable[%s]\n", $dir_name, $b_is_writable? 'YES':'NO');

}while (($dir_name = dirname($dir_name)) !='/');

rudecoder at yahoo dot com
11-Jan-2003 02:43


dirname can be used to create self referencing web scripts with the following one liner.



$base_url = str_replace($DOCUMENT_ROOT, "", dirname($PHP_SELF));



Using this method on a file such as:



/home/mysite/public_html/wherever/whatever.php



will return:



/wherever



Now $base_url can be used in your HTML to reference other scripts in the same directory.



Example:



href='<?=$base_url?>/myscript.php'

dave at corecomm dot us
08-Jan-2003 12:20


I very much appreciated Fredrich Echol's suggestion (rwf at gpcom dot net) of how to find a base path, but found that it failed when the initial script was already in the root folder -- dirname('/rootscript.php')=='/' and dirname('/include/includescript.php')=='/include' which have the same number of slashes. This variation is what I'm now using:



if (!defined("BASE_PATH")) define('BASE_PATH', dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])=='/' ? './' : str_repeat("../",  substr_count(dirname($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]), "/")));



This explicitly checks for the root path (/) and uses './' as the base path if we're in the root folder.

I put this at/near the top of any file that calls another. (I used define for my own convenience; should work just fine with variables and without testing to see if you already did it.)



Note that in both cases (root-folder script and non-root-folder script), BASE_PATH will include a trailing slash. At least with Apache on Darwin (Mac OS X), you can include(BASE_PATH.'/myfile.php'); and the doubled slash won't cause any problems, giving the same result as include(BASE_PATH.'myfile.php'); .

ludma at pochtamt dot ru
26-Dec-2002 10:35


This function does a correct way to a directory on a server,

it does not recognize only such ways as 

http://???/script.php?dir=/ok/index.php



function url_dir($url) {

    if (preg_match('/(.*)\/([^\/\.?]+)$/i', $url)) {

        $t_dir = preg_replace('/[^\/]$/', '\\0/', $url);

    } else {

        $t_dir = preg_replace(

        array('/(https?:\/\/)?(\w+\.)?(\w+\.'

        .'[a-z]{2,4})(.*)\/([^\/]*)$/','/[^\/]$/'),

        array('\\1\\2\\3\\4','\\0/'), $url);

    }

return $t_dir;

}



Test:



$dir = url_dir("http://www.roja.ru/path/?ok=1&r=1");

nsefton_nospam_ at hotmail dot com
27-Aug-2002 10:03


Well i had this same problem, includes including files and how to get to overcome the problem of the first file can see the second, but the second does not know where it is being called from, and thus cant call the third file, so i came up with this solution...



<?php



   function getPath() {

      

      // get position of current file

      $path = $GLOBALS["PATH_INFO"];

      // save a few nanaseconds, has this been done before,

      // has the global variable been set ?

      if (!isset($definedPath)) {

         // is file in root already ?

         if (strrpos($path,"/")!=0) {

            // there is probably a quicker way to count 

            // the "/"s in the path

            $path=explode("/",$path);

            $s="";

            for ($i=0;$i<count($path)-1;$i++) {

               if ($path[$i]!="") {

                  // add the number of "../"s required

                  $s.="../";

               }

            }

            // declare a global variable so you dont have to

            // do this again, and return the variable

            global $definedPath;

            $definedPath=$s;

            return $definedPath;

         }

      } else {

         // just return what it worked out before, function 

         // only really runs once

         return $definedPath; 

      }

   }

   

   include getPath() . "my_include_path/header.inc";

   include getPath() . "includes/somethingelse.inc";

   //above file is at mydomain.com/includes/somethingelse.inc

   include getPath() . "includes/footer.inc";



?>



So basically, this finds the "path back home" and from there it knows it's way around. I like Fredric's solution ( even tho I dont understand it :P ) but i thought I'd share what I've done (with room for improvement i'm sure).



Noel

rwf at gpcom dot net
01-Aug-2002 06:08


If you want relative includes like C or C++ has, you need to find out where you are in relation to the base path of the server. That is, if you are two levels into the "htdocs" directory in apache, then you need to add "../../" to the begining of the include to get back to the base directory. That's simple. What's NOT so simple is when you have "nested" included files.



Continuing the example above, if you have a file example.php and it includes "../../lib.php" and lib.php includes "lib2.php" guess where "lib2.php" needs to be located? In the same directory as example.php! What you really wanted was to have lib.php and lib2.php in the same directory... To get that result you need to include "../../lib2.php" in lib.php... But wait, now it won't work if the original example.php file is in any other place but two levels deep!



The answer to the problem is this: find the number of levels you are currently into the base directory and add as many "../" as you need to the begining of the include filename in EVERY include file.



Here's an example:



example.php

------------

$BasePath = str_repeat("../", substr_count(dirname($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]), "/"));



require_once($BasePath."lib.php");

------------



Notice that we're adding the $BasePath and the name of the file we want together to get the full path. It will look like this: "../../lib.php"



lib.php

------

require_once($BasePath."lib2.php");

------



Notice here that BasePath has already been defined so we don't know or care what BasePath looks like, only that it now allows us to use a relative path to lib2.php since it automatically adds the number of "../" needed to get to it from the original example.php that the server executed. The path here will look like this: "../../lib2.php"



And now we can easily have lib.php and lib2.php in the same directory, and have lib.php include lib2.php as if it's a relative include.



Pretty simple, no? :)



-Fredric Echols

timATscurvyDOTnewyorkNETs
22-May-2002 06:45


if you want to know the *File System* (not web) Absolute Path (expanding the links) of the script that's currently being executed, try this:



$path=dirname(realpath($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']));

tapken at engter dot de
30-Apr-2002 02:09


To get the directory of current included file:

dirname(__FILE__);



For example, if a script called 'database.init.php' which is included from anywhere on the filesystem wants to include the script 'database.class.php', which lays in the same directory, you can use:



include_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/database.class.php');

inconnu0215 at noos dot fr
27-Mar-2002 03:13


To get the highest direcory, a simple method is : $dir=basename(dirname($path));

dirname

Description