Extract a parent path with parameter expansion.
Bash Scripts: Percent removes the shortest matching slash-and-suffix portion.
set -euo pipefail
path="reports/2026/annual.csv"
printf "%s\n" "${path%/*}"Expected output EXAMPLE
reports/2026
Details
Requires Bash 4 or later. Save as snippet.sh and run bash snippet.sh in an empty working directory. Percent removes the shortest matching slash-and-suffix portion.
A value with no slash remains unchanged; use dirname if its edge-case behavior is required.
Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) · bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test inputs, results and environment
The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.
- Architecture / host kernel
- x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
- Snippet identity / locale
- uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
- Interpreter invocation
bash -euo pipefail -c <published code>- Container image ID
sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3- Code SHA-256
4cbdf730cfcb38e87ed2e87a54c071a30a3a52b6c7553435e5908264b604725d- Dependencies
- bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test input setup
These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.
# No input files required.
Observed standard output
reports/2026
Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.