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# realpath

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

realpath -- 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. The resulting path will have no symbolic link, '/./' or '/../' components.

realpath() returns `FALSE` on failure, e.g. if the file does not exist. On BSD systems realpath() doesn't fail if only the last `path` component doesn't exist, while other systems will return `FALSE`.

Example 1. realpath() example

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

The above example will output:

    /etc/passwd

See also basename(), dirname(), and pathinfo().

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