PHP: realpath function - Returns canonicalized absolute pathname

Description

string realpath ( string $path )

realpath() expands all symbolic links and resolves references to '/./', '/../' and extra '/' characters in the input path . and return the canonicalized absolute pathname.

Parameters

path: The path being checked.

Return Values

Returns the canonicalized absolute pathname on success. The resulting path will have no symbolic link, '/./' or '/../' components.

realpath() returns FALSE on failure, e.g. if the file does not exist.

ChangeLog

Version	Description
5.3.0	Prior to this release realpath() would not fail on BSD systems if only the last last `path`* component did not exist.

Examples

Example #1 realpath() example


<?php
chdir('/var/www/');
echo realpath('./../../etc/passwd');
?>

The above example will output:

/etc/passwd

Example #2 realpath() on Windows

On windows realpath() will change unix style paths to windows style.


<?php
echo realpath('/windows/system32');
?>