Description
string 
dirname ( string path )
     Given a string containing a path to a file, this function will
     return the name of the directory.
    
     On Windows, both slash (/) and backslash
     (\) are used as directory separator character. In
     other environments, it is the forward slash
     (/).
    
     
| Example 1. dirname() example | 
<?php$path = "/etc/passwd";
 $file = dirname($path); // $file is set to "/etc"
 ?>
 | 
 | 
    Note: 
      In PHP 4.0.3, dirname() was fixed to be
      POSIX-compliant. Essentially, this means that if there are no
      slashes in path , a dot
      ('.') is returned, indicating the current
      directory. Otherwise, the returned string is
      path with any trailing
      /component removed. Note that this means that
      you will often get a slash or a dot back from
      dirname() in situations where the older
      functionality would have given you the empty string.
     
     dirname() has changed its behaviour in PHP 4.3.0.
     Check the following examples:
     
    
     dirname() has been binary safe since PHP 5.0.0
    
     See also basename(), pathinfo(), 
     and realpath().