# Sanity check on File.dirname

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sanity-check-on-file-dirname/160002>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 10, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sanity-check-on-file-dirname/160002 "2009-02-10T21:06:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danielb)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sanity-check-on-file-dirname/160002/1 "2009-02-10T21:06:39Z")

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Hi,

I need a quick sanity check.

Excepting potential backslashes for the moment, aren’t these two  
identical?

File.dirname(path).split(’/’)[0…-2].join(’/’)

File.dirname(File.dirname(path))

Dan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@danielb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danielb)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sanity-check-on-file-dirname/160002/2 "2009-02-11T10:24:18Z")

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Dan, they differ if the path isn’t nested deeply enough, for example  
“/a/b”, “/c” or “d”.

Regards,  
Pit