How-To get root directory of given path in bash?
My script: #!/usr/bin/env bash PATH=/home/user/example/foo/bar mkdir -p /tmp/backup$PATH And now I want to get first folder of "$PATH": /home/ cd /tmp/backup rm -rf ./home/ cd - > /dev/null How can I always detect the first folder like the example above? "dirname $PATH" just returns "/home/user/example/foo/". Thanks in advance! :) I've found a solution: #/usr/bin/env bash DIRECTORY="/home/user/example/foo/bar" BASE_DIRECTORY=$(echo "$DIRECTORY" | cut -d "/" -f2) echo "#$BASE_DIRECTORY#"; This returns always the first directory. In this example it would return following: #home# Thanks to