Getting the full name of a file's parent directory in batch script

Question

I need to write a batch script to find out the full path to any given file's parent directory. Now, I'm completely new to batch scripts, so I need someone to lend me a hand with this :P

There is a similar question here on SO, but it's not what I'm looking for.

Any help is much appreciated!

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9510743/how-to-get-parent-path-of-cd — Hasan Khan, Aug 14 '17 at 07:54

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 06 '10 at 13:29

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ben/archive/2007/03/09/path-manipulation-in-a-batch-file.aspx

If %I is your variable:

%~I - expands %I removing any surrounding quotes (")
%~fI - expands %I to a fully qualified path name
%~dI - expands %I to a drive letter only
%~pI - expands %I to a path only
%~nI - expands %I to a file name only
%~xI - expands %I to a file extension only
%~sI - expanded path contains short names only
%~aI - expands %I to file attributes of file
%~tI - expands %I to date/time of file
%~zI - expands %I to size of file
%~$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable and expands %I to the fully qualified name of the first one found. If the environment variable name is not
defined or the file is not found by the search, then this modifier expands to the empty string

The modifiers can be combined to get compound results:

%~dpI - expands %I to a drive letter and path only
%~nxI - expands %I to a file name and extension only
%~fsI - expands %I to a full path name with short names only
%~dp$PATH:I - searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable for %I and expands to the drive letter and path of the first one found.
%~ftzaI - expands %I to a DIR like output line

@Nubsis. Indeed! I forgot to include an usage example. You can find it in @ur's answer. — Dr. belisarius, Dec 06 '10 at 14:20
@Nubsis Sometimes batch syntax makes me feel the opposite :) — Dr. belisarius, Dec 06 '10 at 14:25
That is really useful to post the results of "CALL.exe /?" as an answer to the question! — djangofan, Jan 14 '12 at 20:32

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 26 '12 at 01:36

4

pushd "%~dp0%"; pushd ..; set parent=%cd%;popd; popd;

echo parent directory double quoted is "%parent%"

edited Oct 26 '12 at 01:36

wattostudios

8,666
13
43
57

answered Oct 26 '12 at 01:16

d4winds

41
1

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 06 '10 at 13:31

1

@echo off
setlocal
set anyfile=c:\dir1\dir2\file.txt

call :printPath %anyfile%
echo %result%
goto :eof

:printPath
set result=%~dp1 
goto :eof

answered Dec 06 '10 at 13:31

ur.

2,890
1
18
21

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 19 '10 at 11:55

This should do the trick quite nicely!

   @echo off
   setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

   set filename=c:\temp\folder1\folder2\folder3\file.tmp

   for %%a in ("%filename%") do (
      set currentfolder=%%~dpa
      for %%b in ("!currentfolder:~0,-1!") do (
         set parentfolder=%%~dpb
      )
   )

   echo !parentfolder!

This will output the following line:

   c:\temp\folder1\folder2\

djangofan · Answer 5 · 2012-01-14T20:26:55.803

I think I found a pretty good method although it isn't the best one:

@echo off
::setlocal enableextensions,enabledelayedexpansion
SET CDIR=%~p0
SET CDIR=%CDIR:~1,-1%
SET CDIR=%CDIR:\=,%
SET CDIR=%CDIR: =_%
FOR %%a IN (%CDIR%) DO SET "CNAME=%%a"
echo %CDIR%
SET CNAME=%CNAME:_= %
echo %CNAME%
pause

But finally, I discovered this method is the best one:

SET "_CDIR=%~dp0"
FOR %%i IN ("%_CDIR%") DO SET _CDIR_NAME=%%~nxi

Getting the full name of a file's parent directory in batch script

5 Answers5