Get parent directory of running script

Question

In PHP, what would be the cleanest way to get the parent directory of the current running script relative to the www root? Assume I have:

$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] == '/relative/path/to/script/index.php'

Or just:

$something_else == '/relative/path/to/script/'

And I need to get /relative/path/to/ with slashes properly inserted. What would you suggest? A one liner is preferred.

EDIT

I need to get a path relative to the www root, dirname(__FILE__) gives me an absolute path in the filesystem so that won't work. $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] on the other hand 'starts' at the www root.

Mike B · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-10T16:48:07.947

173

If your script is located in /var/www/dir/index.php then the following would return:

dirname(__FILE__); // /var/www/dir

or

dirname( dirname(__FILE__) ); // /var/www

Edit

This is a technique used in many frameworks to determine relative paths from the app_root.

File structure:

 /var/
      www/
          index.php
          subdir/
                 library.php

index.php is my dispatcher/boostrap file that all requests are routed to:

define(ROOT_PATH, dirname(__FILE__) ); // /var/www

library.php is some file located an extra directory down and I need to determine the path relative to the app root (/var/www/).

$path_current = dirname( __FILE__ ); // /var/www/subdir
$path_relative = str_replace(ROOT_PATH, '', $path_current); // /subdir

There's probably a better way to calculate the relative path then str_replace() but you get the idea.

edited Dec 10 '09 at 16:48

answered Dec 10 '09 at 16:09

Mike B

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That won't work as I need the path relative to the www root. I could just replace the /var/www part out of it, but this needs to work on Windows and *nix. – Tatu Ulmanen Dec 10 '09 at 16:22
There is no dependable sure-fire way of determining the ROOT_PATH on all OS's on all servers. The best practice technique is to `define(ROOT_PATH, dirname(__FILE__));` early in your stack (hopefully you use a common dispatcher or bootstrap so this won't be a headache to implement) and use that in conjunction with other functions to produce a relative path. – Mike B Dec 10 '09 at 16:37
In my case it's the other way down. All requests are routed to /something/cms/index.php so setting ROOT_PATH from there results in /something/cms/, and I need to access the parent directory /something/. So I guess I'll just have to resort to some ugly string manipulation. – Tatu Ulmanen Dec 10 '09 at 17:54
I've been using `$_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']` to get the directory, but I like this idea. Excellent answer. – Amal Murali Nov 20 '13 at 19:41
3

As of PHP 7.0.0, `dirname(__FILE__, 2)` can be used instead of `dirname(dirname(__FILE__))`. [`dirname` Changelog](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.dirname.php#refsect1-function.dirname-changelog) – Leon Williams Oct 10 '20 at 22:31

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 09:08

As of PHP 5.3.0 you can use __DIR__ for this purpose.

The directory of the file. If used inside an include, the directory of the included file is returned. This is equivalent to dirname(__ FILE__).

See PHP Magic constants.

C:\www>php --version
PHP 5.5.6 (cli) (built: Nov 12 2013 11:33:44)
Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2013 Zend Technologies

C:\www>php -r "echo __DIR__;"
C:\www

hans · Answer 3 · 2014-04-17T17:30:29.397

12

To get the parentdir of the current script.

$parent_dir = dirname(__DIR__);

edited Apr 17 '14 at 17:30

answered Apr 17 '14 at 17:25

hans

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Marco Demaio · Answer 4 · 2012-11-25T10:43:40.763

8

If I properly understood your question, supposing your running script is

/relative/path/to/script/index.php

This would give you the parent directory of your running script relative to the document www:

$parent_dir = dirname(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])) . '/';
//$parent_dir will be '/relative/path/to/'

If you want the parent directory of your running script relative to server root:

$parent_dir = dirname(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'])) . '/';
//$parent_dir will be '/root/some/path/relative/path/to/'

edited Nov 25 '12 at 10:43

answered May 09 '11 at 19:19

Marco Demaio

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Hi! I've tried to ask this before... Is it common practice to put a trailing slash or omit it? I like to omit it because: `$url = BASE_URL . '/my/path/';` looks better to me than `$url = BASE_URL . 'my/path/';`. Is there a standard way or what's most common? – nkkollaw May 29 '13 at 21:43
@nbrogi: I like to always add it, so you can immediately see it's a directory/folder and not a file name without the extension. – Marco Demaio Jun 05 '13 at 17:11

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 02 '17 at 10:38

I Hope this will help you.

echo getcwd().'<br>'; // getcwd() will return current working directory
echo dirname(getcwd(),1).'<br>';
echo dirname(getcwd(),2).'<br>';
echo dirname(getcwd(),3).'<br>';

Output :

C:\wamp64\www\public_html\step
C:\wamp64\www\public_html
C:\wamp64\www
C:\wamp64

score 5 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 30 '13 at 20:55

5

Fugly, but this will do it:

substr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'], 0, strpos($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])))

edited Aug 30 '13 at 20:55

Sliq

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answered Aug 30 '13 at 20:37

Brad

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 11 '13 at 00:49

Here is what I use since I am not running > 5.2

function getCurrentOrParentDirectory($type='current')
{
    if ($type == 'current') {
        $path = dirname(__FILE__);  
    } else {
        $path = dirname(dirname(__FILE__));
    }
    $position = strrpos($path, '/') + 1;
    return substr($path, $position);
}

Double dirname with file as suggested by @mike b for the parent directory, and current directory is found by just using that syntax once.

Note this function only returns the NAME, slashes have to be added afterwards.

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 10 '09 at 16:10

2

$dir = dirname($file) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

answered Dec 10 '09 at 16:10

Jordan Ryan Moore

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But isn't a `DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR define` a needless thing? PHP seems to work well with both type of slashes `/ \\` also on Windows machines. – Marco Demaio Nov 25 '12 at 10:45

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 11 '17 at 05:25

This is a function that I use. Created it once so I always have this functionality:

function getDir(){
    $directory = dirname(__FILE__);
    $directory = explode("/",$directory);
    $findTarget = 0;
    $targetPath = "";
    foreach($directory as $dir){
        if($findTarget == 1){
            $targetPath = "".$targetPath."/".$dir."";
        }
        if($dir == "public_html"){
            $findTarget = 1;
        }
    }
    return "http://www.".$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']."".$targetPath."";
}

If I understand well this script seeks the absolute path to "public_html". In this case, shouldn't the ' == ' symbol be replaced by ' != ' ? — gcousin, Mar 31 '20 at 21:50

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 15 '14 at 09:37

1

Try this. Works on both windows or linux server..

str_replace('\\','/',dirname(dirname(__FILE__)))

answered Jan 15 '14 at 09:37

cestar

19
1

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 03 '15 at 11:12

0

This is also a possible solution

$relative = '/relative/path/to/script/';
$absolute = __DIR__. '/../' .$relative;

answered Jun 03 '15 at 11:12

collidoscope

63
4

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 02 '18 at 02:10

I hope this will help

function get_directory(){
    $s = empty($_SERVER["HTTPS"]) ? '' : ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == "on") ? "s" : "";
    $protocol = substr(strtolower($_SERVER["SERVER_PROTOCOL"]), 0, strpos(strtolower($_SERVER["SERVER_PROTOCOL"]), "/")) . $s;
    $port = ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] == "80") ? "" : (":".$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"]);
return $protocol . "://" . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
}
define("ROOT_PATH", get_directory()."/" );
echo ROOT_PATH;

score -7 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 10 '09 at 17:55

-7

Got it myself, it's a bit kludgy but it works:

substr(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']), 0, strrpos(dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']), '/') + 1)

So if I have /path/to/folder/index.php, this results in /path/to/.

answered Dec 10 '09 at 17:55

Tatu Ulmanen

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2

I don't understand you simply need to call twice `dirname` in order to reach the parent directory, see my answer. – Marco Demaio May 09 '11 at 19:20

Get parent directory of running script

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