How do I get the parent directory in Python?

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.

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.

Using os.path.dirname:

>>> os.path.dirname(r'C:\Program Files')
'C:\\'
>>> os.path.dirname('C:\\')
'C:\\'
>>>

Caveat: os.path.dirname() gives different results depending on whether a trailing slash is included in the path. This may or may not be the semantics you want. Cf. @kender's answer using os.path.join(yourpath, os.pardir).