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Request #48659 dirname() to accept path level to return
Submitted: 2009-06-23 10:47 UTC Modified: 2014-04-30 22:43 UTC
Votes:1
Avg. Score:4.0 ± 0.0
Reproduced:1 of 1 (100.0%)
Same Version:0 (0.0%)
Same OS:0 (0.0%)
From: ninzya at inbox dot lv Assigned:
Status: Wont fix Package: Filesystem function related
PHP Version: Any OS: Irrelevant
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
 [2009-06-23 10:47 UTC] ninzya at inbox dot lv 
Description:
------------
It would be great if dirname() function had a second parameter, let's say - uint $level, which would mean "how many path levels to strip off". By default this parameter could be set to 1 to not to break the backwards compatibility.

Reproduce code:
---------------
<?php

$path ='/var/www/localhost/public_html/tpl/';

echo dirname( $path);// /var/www/localhost/public_html
echo dirname( $path, 2);// /var/www/localhost
echo dirname( $path, 3);// /var/www/
echo dirname( $path, 4);// /var
echo dirname( $path, 5);// .
echo dirname( $path, 6);// .

?>

Expected result:
----------------
Expect this feature to be implemented

Actual result:
--------------
-

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 [2012-07-13 15:56 UTC] ajfweb at googlemail dot com 
This is ancient, but this should be closed. It's completely unnecessary, .. 
exists.
 [2014-04-30 22:43 UTC] levim@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Wont fix -Package: Feature/Change Request +Package: Filesystem function related -Operating System: - +Operating System: Irrelevant -PHP Version: 5.3.0RC4 +PHP Version: Any
 [2014-05-01 10:21 UTC] ninzya at inbox dot lv 
Quote from dirname() docs:

dirname() operates naively on the input string, and is not aware of the actual filesystem, or path components such as "..".

Therefore, dirname( "a/b/c/.." ) will yield "a/b/c" which is not what I want.

>> It's completely unnecessary
Wouldn't say that it is COMPLETELY unnecessary. Otherwise, why do we have dirname() in first place? We have "..", right?

One of valid use cases is to keep paths without ".." bloat.
 [2014-05-01 10:30 UTC] ajf at ajf dot me 
Oops, you're right. However, if you want to make it strip multiple levels, you can simply apply the function multiple times, or write a function to apply it so:

function dirname_multilevel($path, $level = 1) {
    return $level ? dirname_mutilevel(dirname($path), $level - 1) : $path;
}
 [2014-05-01 10:37 UTC] ninzya at inbox dot lv 
Yep, agree. That's what I do already. Just thought maybe implementing this feature in dirname() natively would make things better.

Thanks anyway. Not a critical problem!
 
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