bashdirectorydirname

Getting the parent of a directory in Bash

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/
Solution 
  • dir=/home/smith/Desktop/Test
parentdir="$(dirname "$dir")"

    Works if there is a trailing slash, too.