How to get the Parent's parent directory in Powershell?

So if I have a directory stored in a variable, say:

$scriptPath = (Get-ScriptDirectory);

Now I would like to find the directory two parent levels up.

I need a nice way of doing:

$parentPath = Split-Path -parent $scriptPath
$rootPath = Split-Path -parent $parentPath

Can I get to the rootPath in one line of code?

Version for a directory

get-item is your friendly helping hand here.

(get-item $scriptPath ).parent.parent

If you Want the string only

(get-item $scriptPath ).parent.parent.FullName

Version for a file

If $scriptPath points to a file then you have to call Directory property on it first, so the call would look like this

(get-item $scriptPath).Directory.Parent.Parent.FullName

Remarks
This will only work if $scriptPath exists. Otherwise you have to use Split-Path cmdlet.

I've solved that like this:

$RootPath = Split-Path (Split-Path $PSScriptRoot -Parent) -Parent

You can split it at the backslashes, and take the next-to-last one with negative array indexing to get just the grandparent directory name.

($scriptpath -split '\\')[-2]

You have to double the backslash to escape it in the regex.

To get the entire path:

($path -split '\\')[0..(($path -split '\\').count -2)] -join '\'

And, looking at the parameters for split-path, it takes the path as pipeline input, so:

$rootpath = $scriptpath | split-path -parent | split-path -parent

You can use

(get-item $scriptPath).Directoryname

to get the string path or if you want the Directory type use:

(get-item $scriptPath).Directory

You can simply chain as many split-path as you need:

$rootPath = $scriptPath | split-path | split-path

In PowerShell 3, $PsScriptRoot or for your question of two parents up,

$dir = ls "$PsScriptRoot\..\.."

To extrapolate a bit on the other answers (in as Beginner-friendly a way as possible):

• String objects that point to valid paths can be converted to DirectoryInfo/FileInfo objects via functions like Get-Item and Get-ChildItem.
• .Parent can only be used on a DirectoryInfo object.
• .Directory converts a FileInfo object to a DirectoryInfo object (targeting the file's directory), and will return null if used on any other type (even another DirectoryInfo object).
• .DirectoryName converts a FileInfo object to a String object (targeting the file's directory), and will return null if used on any other type (even another String object).
• .FullName converts a DirectoryInfo/FileInfo object to a String object, and will return null if used on any other type (even another DirectoryInfo/FileInfo object).
• .Path converts a PathInfo object to a String object, and will return null if used on any other type (even another PathInfo object).

Check the object type with the GetType Method to see what you're working with: $scriptPath.GetType()

Lastly, a quick tip that helps with making one-liners: Get-Item has the gi alias and Get-ChildItem has the gci alias.

simplest solution

Here's the simplest solution

"$path\..\.."

If you want to get an absolute path, you can

"$path\..\.." | Convert-Path

reusable solution

Here is a reusable solution, first define the getParent function, then call it directly.

function getParent($path, [int]$deep = 1) {
    $result = $path | Get-Item | ForEach-Object { $_.PSIsContainer ? $_.Parent : $_.Directory }
    for ($deep--; $deep -gt 0; $deep--) { $result = getParent $result }
    return $result
}

getParent $scriptPath 2

Split-Path -Path (Get-Location).Path -Parent

In powershell :

$this_script_path = $(Get-Item $($MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path)).DirectoryName

$parent_folder = Split-Path $this_script_path -Leaf

If you want to use $PSScriptRoot you can do

Join-Path -Path $PSScriptRoot -ChildPath ..\.. -Resolve