<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!-- $Revision: 1.3 $ -->
<!-- splitted from ./en/functions/filesystem.xml, last change in rev 1.2 -->
  <refentry id="function.dirname">
   <refnamediv>
    <refname>dirname</refname>
    <refpurpose>Returns directory name component of path</refpurpose>
   </refnamediv>
   <refsect1>
    <title>Description</title>
     <methodsynopsis>
      <type>string</type><methodname>dirname</methodname>
      <methodparam><type>string</type><parameter>path</parameter></methodparam>
     </methodsynopsis>
    <para>
     Given a string containing a path to a file, this function will
     return the name of the directory.
    </para>
    <para>
     On Windows, both slash (<literal>/</literal>) and backslash
     (<literal>\</literal>) are used as path separator character.  In
     other environments, it is the forward slash
     (<literal>/</literal>).</para>
    <para>
     <example>
      <title><function>dirname</function> example</title>
      <programlisting role="php">
<![CDATA[
$path = "/etc/passwd";
$file = dirname ($path); // $file is set to "/etc"
]]>
      </programlisting>
     </example>
    </para>
    <note>
     <para>
      In PHP 4.0.3, <function>dirname</function> was fixed to be
      POSIX-compliant. Essentially, this means that if there are no
      slashes in <parameter>path</parameter> , a dot
      ('<literal>.</literal>') is returned, indicating the current
      directory. Otherwise, the returned string is
      <parameter>path</parameter> with any trailing
      <literal>/component</literal> removed. Note that this means that
      you will often get a slash or a dot back from
      <function>dirname</function> in situations where the older
      functionality would have given you the empty string.
     </para>
    </note>
    <para>
     See also: <function>basename</function>, <function>pathinfo</function>, 
     and <function>realpath</function>.
    </para>
   </refsect1>
  </refentry>

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