Get Directory of a File Name in Javascript

Question

How to get the directory of a file?

For example, I pass in a string

C:\Program Files\nant\bin\nant.exe

I want a function that returns me

C:\Program Files\nant\bin

I would prefer a built in function that does the job, instead of having manually split the string and exclude the last one.

Edit: I am running on Windows

Answer 1

The core Javascript language doesn't provide file/io functions. However if you're working in a Windows OS you can use the FileSystemObject (ActiveX/COM).

Note: Don't use this in the client script-side script of a web application though, it's best in other areas such as in Windows script host, or the server side of a web app where you have more control over the platform.

This page provides a good tutorial on how to do this.

Here's a rough example to do what you want:

   var fso, targetFilePath,fileObj,folderObj;

   fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

   fileObj = fso.GetFile(targetFilePath);

   folderObj=fileObj.ParentFolder;

   alert(folderObj.Path);

Answer 2

I don't know if there is any built in functionality for this, but it's pretty straight forward to get the path.

path = path.substring(0,path.lastIndexOf("\")+1);

Answer 3

There's no perfect solution, because this functionality isn't built-in, and there's no way to get the system file-separator. You can try:

path = path.substring(0, Math.max(path.lastIndexOf("/"), path.lastIndexOf("\\"))); alert(path);

Answer 4

function getFileDirectory(filePath) {
  if (filePath.indexOf("/") == -1) { // windows
    return filePath.substring(0, filePath.lastIndexOf('\\'));
  } 
  else { // unix
    return filePath.substring(0, filePath.lastIndexOf('/'));
  }
}
console.assert(getFileDirectory('C:\\Program Files\\nant\\bin\\nant.exe') === 'C:\\Program Files\\nant\\bin');
console.assert(getFileDirectory('/usr/bin/nant') === '/usr/bin');

Answer 5

write some code?

search backward for \ or //, create a new substring