Get parent directory of running script

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.

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.

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

To get the parentdir of the current script.

$parent_dir = dirname(__DIR__);

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/'

Fugly, but this will do it:

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

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

$dir = dirname($file) . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

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.

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."";
}

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

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

This is also a possible solution

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

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;

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/.