convert '../../' into 'path/path/'

Question

Is there a way to convert a path that looks like ../../../ into path/path/path, I want to make a search class but got to thinking that anyone could pass in the ../ format instead of path/ and return a list of the files that are found.

I started to approach this by using preg_replace() to find and replace everything up until it matches the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] in the path being passed. But the only solves the path/path/path problem.

How would I approach the ../../../ problem?

Answer 1

Not very clear about the ask but probably this will work for you:

$path = '../../..';
$path = str_replace(realpath($path) . '/', '', getcwd());

Answer 2

What about realpath?

http://php.net/manual/en/function.realpath.php