Getting the parent of a directory in Bash

Question

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

This would go up to the parent folder cd

User · Answer

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        gt  dev null 2 gt  amp 1  amp  amp  cd            amp  amp  pwd   This would give 3 parents directories up

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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  quot   dirname  quot  dir quot   quot    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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    amp  amp      -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

User · Answer

Started from the idea comment Charles Duffy  - Dec 17  14 at 5 32 on the topic 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  lt  lt  lt    dirTree    printf   s n         dirs     - 1         for   cnt 0   cnt  lt    dirNr    cnt       do       dirName  cnt      IFS   read -r -a dirs  lt  lt  lt   PWD   printf   s n     dirs    dirs     -      cnt 1                 information     feedback       echo   cnt      dirName  cnt      done    dirTree  PWD  getDirNames

User · Answer

Just use echo   cd      amp  amp  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

User · Answer

dir  home smith Desktop Test parentdir    dirname   dir      Works if there is a trailing slash  too

User · Answer

If  home smith Desktop Test     is what you want   dirname  path to child dir    as seen here

User · Answer

but what is  seen here  is broken  Here s the fix      gt  pwd  home me  gt  x  Om Namah Shivaya   gt  mkdir   x   amp  amp  cd   x   home me Om Namah Shivaya  gt  parentdir    dirname    pwd      gt  echo  parentdir  home me

[bash] Getting the parent of a directory in Bash

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