PHP pathinfo() Function

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

Note: This function is locale aware. Therefore, to parse a path containing multibyte characters correctly, the matching locale must be set using the setlocale() function.

Syntax

pathinfo(path, flags)

Parameters

`path`	`Required.` Specify the path being checked.
`flags`	`Optional.` Specify which array element to return. If not specified, it returns all elements. Possible values are: PATHINFO_DIRNAME - returns only dirname PATHINFO_BASENAME - returns only basename PATHINFO_EXTENSION - returns only extension PATHINFO_FILENAME - returns only filename

Return Value

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

If the path has more than one extension, PATHINFO_EXTENSION returns only the last one and PATHINFO_FILENAME only strips the last one.
If the path does not have an extension, no extension element will be returned.
If the basename of the path starts with a dot, the following characters are interpreted as extension, and the filename is empty.

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

Example: pathinfo() example

The example below shows the usage of pathinfo() function.

<?php
//getting information about a file path
$path_parts = pathinfo('/www/htdocs/inc/lib.inc.php');

//displaying the result
print_r($path_parts);

echo "\n";

//displaying each array element separately
echo $path_parts['dirname'], "\n";
echo $path_parts['basename'], "\n";
echo $path_parts['extension'], "\n";
echo $path_parts['filename'], "\n";
?>

The output of the above code will be similar to:

Array
(
    [dirname] => /www/htdocs/inc
    [basename] => lib.inc.php
    [extension] => php
    [filename] => lib.inc
)

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

Example: using pathinfo() for a dot-file

Consider the example below where this function is used with a dot file.

<?php
//getting information about a dot file
$path_parts = pathinfo('/www/htdocs/inc/.test');

//displaying the result
print_r($path_parts);
?>

The output of the above code will be similar to:

Array
(
    [dirname] => /www/htdocs/inc
    [basename] => .test
    [extension] => test
    [filename] => 
)

❮ PHP Filesystem Reference