How do I get the parent directory in Python?

Question

Could someone tell me how to get the parent directory of a path in Python in a cross platform way. E.g.

C:Program Files ---> C:

and

C: ---> C:

If the directory doesn't have a parent directory, it returns the directory itself. The question might seem simple but I couldn't dig it up through Google.

Answer 1

Python 3.4

Use the pathlib module.

from pathlib import Path
path = Path("/here/your/path/file.txt")
print(path.parent.absolute())

Old answer

Try this:

import os
print os.path.abspath(os.path.join(yourpath, os.pardir))

where yourpath is the path you want the parent for.