The php method realpath() can transform the string format of a path into a real path. Means, a path string like:
/Users/mathias/data/../projects/website
will become:
/Users/mathias/projects/website
But this only works, if the path really exists. For non-existing paths, this function cannot be used. To get the same functionality, the following function can be used:
/**
* Get normalized path, like realpath() for non-existing path or file
*
* @param string $path path to be normalized
* @return false|string|string[]
*/
public function normalizePath(string $path)
{
return array_reduce(explode('/', $path), function($a, $b) {
if ($a === null) {
$a = "/";
}
if ($b === "" || $b === ".") {
return $a;
}
if ($b === "..") {
return dirname($a);
}
return preg_replace("/\/+/", "/", "$a/$b");
});
}