Getting the parent of a directory in Bash
BashDirectoryDirnameBash Problem Overview
If I have a file path such as...
/home/smith/Desktop/Test
/home/smith/Desktop/Test/
How do I change the string so it will be the parent directory?
e.g.
/home/smith/Desktop
/home/smith/Desktop/
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
dir=/home/smith/Desktop/Test
parentdir="$(dirname "$dir")"
Works if there is a trailing slash, too.
Solution 2 - Bash
Clearly the parent directory is given by simply appending the dot-dot filename:
/home/smith/Desktop/Test/.. # unresolved path
But you must want the resolved path (an absolute path without any dot-dot path components):
/home/smith/Desktop # resolved path
The problem with the top answers that use dirname, is that they don't work when you enter a path with dot-dots:
$ dir=~/Library/../Desktop/../..
$ parentdir="$(dirname "$dir")"
$ echo $parentdir
/Users/username/Library/../Desktop/.. # not fully resolved
This is more powerful:
dir=/home/smith/Desktop/Test
parentdir=$(builtin cd $dir; pwd)
You can feed it /home/smith/Desktop/Test/.., but also more complex paths like:
$ dir=~/Library/../Desktop/../..
$ parentdir=$(builtin cd $dir; pwd)
$ echo $parentdir
/Users # the fully resolved path!
NOTE: use of builtin ensures no user defined function variant of cd is called, but rather the default utility form which has no output.
Solution 3 - Bash
Just use echo $(cd ../ && pwd) while working in the directory whose parent dir you want to find out. This chain also has the added benefit of not having trailing slashes.
Solution 4 - Bash
...but what is "seen here" is broken. Here's the fix:
> pwd
/home/me
> x='Om Namah Shivaya'
> mkdir "$x" && cd "$x"
/home/me/Om Namah Shivaya
> parentdir="$(dirname "$(pwd)")"
> echo $parentdir
/home/me
Solution 5 - Bash
Motivation for another answer
I like very short, clear, guaranteed code. Bonus point if it does not run an external program, since the day you need to process a huge number of entries, it will be noticeably faster.
Principle
Not sure about what guarantees you have and want, so offering anyway.
If you have guarantees you can do it with very short code. The idea is to use bash text substitution feature to cut the last slash and whatever follows.
Answer from simple to more complex cases of the original question.
If path is guaranteed to end without any slash (in and out)
P=/home/smith/Desktop/Test ; echo "${P%/*}"
/home/smith/Desktop
If path is guaranteed to end with exactly one slash (in and out)
P=/home/smith/Desktop/Test/ ; echo "${P%/*/}/"
/home/smith/Desktop/
If input path may end with zero or one slash (not more) and you want output path to end without slash
for P in \
/home/smith/Desktop/Test \
/home/smith/Desktop/Test/
do
P_ENDNOSLASH="${P%/}" ; echo "${P_ENDNOSLASH%/*}"
done
/home/smith/Desktop
/home/smith/Desktop
If input path may have many extraneous slashes and you want output path to end without slash
for P in \
/home/smith/Desktop/Test \
/home/smith/Desktop/Test/ \
/home/smith///Desktop////Test//
do
P_NODUPSLASH="${P//\/*(\/)/\/}"
P_ENDNOSLASH="${P_NODUPSLASH%%/}"
echo "${P_ENDNOSLASH%/*}";
done
/home/smith/Desktop
/home/smith/Desktop
/home/smith/Desktop
Solution 6 - Bash
Solution 7 - Bash
If you need just the name of parent directory:
parent_dir_name=$(basename $(dirname $PWD))
Solution 8 - Bash
Depending on whether you need absolute paths you may want to take an extra step:
child='/home/smith/Desktop/Test/'
parent=$(dirname "$child")
abs_parent=$(realpath "$parent")
Solution 9 - Bash
use this : export MYVAR="$(dirname "$(dirname "$(dirname "$(dirname $PWD)")")")" if you want 4th parent directory
export MYVAR="$(dirname "$(dirname "$(dirname $PWD)")")"
if you want 3rd parent directory
export MYVAR="$(dirname "$(dirname $PWD)")"
if you want 2nd parent directory
Solution 10 - Bash
ugly but efficient
function Parentdir()
{
local lookFor_ parent_ switch_ i_
lookFor_="$1"
#if it is not a file, we need the grand parent
[ -f "$lookFor_" ] || switch_="/.."
#length of search string
i_="${#lookFor_}"
#remove string one by one until it make sens for the system
while [ "$i_" -ge 0 ] && [ ! -d "${lookFor_:0:$i_}" ];
do
let i_--
done
#get real path
parent_="$(realpath "${lookFor_:0:$i_}$switch_")"
#done
echo "
lookFor_: $1
{lookFor_:0:$i_}: ${lookFor_:0:$i_}
realpath {lookFor_:0:$i_}: $(realpath ${lookFor_:0:$i_})
parent_: $parent_
"
}
lookFor_: /home/Om Namah Shivaya
{lookFor_:0:6}: /home/
realpath {lookFor_:0:6}: /home
parent_: /home
lookFor_: /var/log
{lookFor_:0:8}: /var/log
realpath {lookFor_:0:8}: /UNIONFS/var/log
parent_: /UNIONFS/var
lookFor_: /var/log/
{lookFor_:0:9}: /var/log/
realpath {lookFor_:0:9}: /UNIONFS/var/log
parent_: /UNIONFS/var
lookFor_: /tmp//res.log/..
{lookFor_:0:6}: /tmp//
realpath {lookFor_:0:6}: /tmp
parent_: /
lookFor_: /media/sdc8/../sdc8/Debian_Master//a
{lookFor_:0:35}: /media/sdc8/../sdc8/Debian_Master//
realpath {lookFor_:0:35}: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master
parent_: /media/sdc8
lookFor_: /media/sdc8//Debian_Master/../Debian_Master/a
{lookFor_:0:44}: /media/sdc8//Debian_Master/../Debian_Master/
realpath {lookFor_:0:44}: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master
parent_: /media/sdc8
lookFor_: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master/../Debian_Master/For_Debian
{lookFor_:0:53}: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master/../Debian_Master/For_Debian
realpath {lookFor_:0:53}: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master/For_Debian
parent_: /media/sdc8/Debian_Master
lookFor_: /tmp/../res.log
{lookFor_:0:8}: /tmp/../
realpath {lookFor_:0:8}: /
parent_: /
Solution 11 - Bash
Started from the idea/comment Charles Duffy - Dec 17 '14 at 5:32 on the topic https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1371261/get-current-directory-name-without-full-path-in-a-bash-script
#!/bin/bash
#INFO : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1371261/get-current-directory-name-without-full-path-in-a-bash-script
# comment : by Charles Duffy - Dec 17 '14 at 5:32
# at the beginning :
declare -a dirName[]
function getDirNames(){
dirNr="$( IFS=/ read -r -a dirs <<<"${dirTree}"; printf '%s\n' "$((${#dirs[@]} - 1))" )"
for(( cnt=0 ; cnt < ${dirNr} ; cnt++))
do
dirName[$cnt]="$( IFS=/ read -r -a dirs <<<"$PWD"; printf '%s\n' "${dirs[${#dirs[@]} - $(( $cnt+1))]}" )"
#information – feedback
echo "$cnt : ${dirName[$cnt]}"
done
}
dirTree=$PWD;
getDirNames;
Solution 12 - Bash
if for whatever reason you are interested in navigating up a specific number of directories you could also do: nth_path=$(cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && cd ../../../ && pwd). This would give 3 parents directories up
Solution 13 - Bash
This would go up to the parent folder
cd ../