pathinfo

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.3, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

pathinfoReturns information about a file path

Description

pathinfo(string $path, int $flags = PATHINFO_ALL): array|string

pathinfo() returns information about path: either an associative array or a string, depending on flags.

Note:

For information on retrieving the current path info, read the section on predefined reserved variables.

Note:

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

Note:

On Windows systems only, the \ character will be interpreted as a directory separator. On other systems it will be treated like any other character.

Caution

pathinfo() is locale aware, so for it to parse a path containing multibyte characters correctly, the matching locale must be set using the setlocale() function.

Parameters

path

The path to be parsed.

flags

If present, specifies a specific element to be returned; one of PATHINFO_DIRNAME, PATHINFO_BASENAME, PATHINFO_EXTENSION or PATHINFO_FILENAME.

If flags is not specified, returns all available elements.

Return Values

If the flags parameter is not passed, an associative array containing the following elements is returned: dirname, basename, extension (if any), and filename.

Note:

If the path has more than one extension, PATHINFO_EXTENSION returns only the last one and PATHINFO_FILENAME only strips the last one. (see first example below).

Note:

If the path does not have an extension, no extension element will be returned (see second example below).

Note:

If the basename of the path starts with a dot, the following characters are interpreted as extension, and the filename is empty (see third example below).

If flags is present, returns a string containing the requested element.

Examples

Example #1 pathinfo() Example

<?php
$path_parts
= pathinfo('/www/htdocs/inc/lib.inc.php');

echo
$path_parts['dirname'], "\n";
echo
$path_parts['basename'], "\n";
echo
$path_parts['extension'], "\n";
echo
$path_parts['filename'], "\n";
?>

The above example will output:

/www/htdocs/inc
lib.inc.php
php
lib.inc

Example #2 pathinfo() example showing difference between null and no extension

<?php
$path_parts
= pathinfo('/path/emptyextension.');
var_dump($path_parts['extension']);

$path_parts = pathinfo('/path/noextension');
var_dump($path_parts['extension']);
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

string(0) ""

Notice: Undefined index: extension in test.php on line 6
NULL

Example #3 pathinfo() example for a dot-file

<?php
print_r
(pathinfo('/some/path/.test'));
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Array
(
    [dirname] => /some/path
    [basename] => .test
    [extension] => test
    [filename] =>
)

Example #4 pathinfo() example with array dereferencing

The flags parameter is not a bitmask. Only a single value may be provided. To select only a limited set of parsed values, use array destructuring like so:

<?php
['basename' => $basename, 'dirname' => $dirname] = pathinfo('/www/htdocs/inc/lib.inc.php');

var_dump($basename, $dirname);
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

string(11) "lib.inc.php"
string(15) "/www/htdocs/inc"

See Also

  • dirname() - Returns a parent directory's path
  • basename() - Returns trailing name component of path
  • parse_url() - Parse a URL and return its components
  • realpath() - Returns canonicalized absolute pathname

add a note

User Contributed Notes 4 notes

up
42
Lori
6 years ago
Simple example of pathinfo and array destructuring in PHP 7:
<?php
[ 'basename' => $basename, 'dirname' => $dirname ] = pathinfo('/www/htdocs/inc/lib.inc.php');

var_dump($basename, $dirname);

// result:
// string(11) "lib.inc.php"
// string(15) "/www/htdocs/inc"
?>
up
7
urvi
2 years ago
about the path, there are one thing you should note :
On Windows, both slash (/) and backslash (\) are used as directory separator character. In other environments, it is the forward slash (/). (this explain is from basename() function part https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.basename.php)
example:
<?php
$path
= "https://urvidutta.com /a\b\c\filename.pdf";

echo
pathinfo($pdfUrl, PATHINFO_BASENAME); //get basename
//output
//on window: result is filename.pdf
//on Linux: result is a\b\c\filename.pdf (that is may not your expect)

//so in order to get same result in different system. i will do below first.
$path = str_replace($path, '\\', '/'); //convert '\' to '/'
?>
up
12
Pietro Baricco
12 years ago
Use this function in place of pathinfo to make it work with UTF-8 encoded file names too

<?php
function mb_pathinfo($filepath) {
preg_match('%^(.*?)[\\\\/]*(([^/\\\\]*?)(\.([^\.\\\\/]+?)|))[\\\\/\.]*$%im',$filepath,$m);
if(
$m[1]) $ret['dirname']=$m[1];
if(
$m[2]) $ret['basename']=$m[2];
if(
$m[5]) $ret['extension']=$m[5];
if(
$m[3]) $ret['filename']=$m[3];
return
$ret;
}
?>
up
11
n0dalus
19 years ago
If a file has more than one 'file extension' (seperated by periods), the last one will be returned.
For example:
<?php
$pathinfo
= pathinfo('/dir/test.tar.gz');
echo
'Extension: '.$pathinfo['extension'];
?>
will produce:
Extension: gz

and not tar.gz
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