github.com/rstandt/terraform@v0.12.32-0.20230710220336-b1063613405c/website/docs/configuration/functions/dirname.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "functions" 3 page_title: "dirname - Functions - Configuration Language" 4 sidebar_current: "docs-funcs-file-dirname" 5 description: |- 6 The dirname function removes the last portion from a filesystem path. 7 --- 8 9 # `dirname` Function 10 11 -> **Note:** This page is about Terraform 0.12 and later. For Terraform 0.11 and 12 earlier, see 13 [0.11 Configuration Language: Interpolation Syntax](../../configuration-0-11/interpolation.html). 14 15 `dirname` takes a string containing a filesystem path and removes the last 16 portion from it. 17 18 This function works only with the path string and does not access the 19 filesystem itself. It is therefore unable to take into account filesystem 20 features such as symlinks. 21 22 If the path is empty then the result is `"."`, representing the current 23 working directory. 24 25 The behavior of this function depends on the host platform. On Windows systems, 26 it uses backslash `\` as the path segment separator. On Unix systems, the slash 27 `/` is used. The result of this function is normalized, so on a Windows system 28 any slashes in the given path will be replaced by backslashes before returning. 29 30 Referring directly to filesystem paths in resource arguments may cause 31 spurious diffs if the same configuration is applied from multiple systems or on 32 different host operating systems. We recommend using filesystem paths only 33 for transient values, such as the argument to [`file`](./file.html) (where 34 only the contents are then stored) or in `connection` and `provisioner` blocks. 35 36 ## Examples 37 38 ``` 39 > dirname("foo/bar/baz.txt") 40 foo/bar 41 ``` 42 43 ## Related Functions 44 45 * [`basename`](./basename.html) returns _only_ the last portion of a filesystem 46 path, discarding the portion that would be returned by `dirname`.