Path getParent() method in Java with Examples

The Java Path interface was added to Java NIO in Java 7. The Path interface is located in the java.nio.file package, so the fully qualified name of the Java Path interface is java.nio.file.Path. A Java Path instance represents a path in the file system. A path can use to locate either a file or a directory.path of an entity could be of two types one is an absolute path and other is a relative path. The absolute path is the location address from the root to the entity while the relative path is the location address which is relative to some other path.

getParent() method of java.nio.file.Path used to return the parent path of current path object, or null if this path does not have a parent. The parent path of this path object consists of this path’s root component and each element in the path except for the farthest from the root in the directory hierarchy. If this path has more than one element, and no root component, then this method is equivalent to evaluating the expression:

subpath(0, getNameCount()-1);

Syntax:

Path getParent()

Parameters: This method accepts nothing.

Return value: This method returns a path representing the path’s parent.

Below programs illustrate getParent() method:
Program 1:

// Java program to demonstrate
// java.nio.file.Path.getParent() method

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class GFG {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        throws IOException
    {

        // create object of Path
        Path path
            = Paths.get("D:/workspace/AmanCV.docx");

        // call getParent() to get parent path
        Path parentPath = path.getParent();

        // print ParentPath
        System.out.println("Parent Path: "
                           + parentPath);
    }
}

Output:

Parent Path: D:/workspace

Program 2:

// Java program to demonstrate
// java.nio.file.Path.getParent() method

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class GFG {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        throws IOException
    {

        // create object of Path
        Path path = Paths.get("D:/Resume.pdf");

        // call getParent() to get parent path
        Path parentPath = path.getParent();

        // print ParentPath
        System.out.println("Parent Path: "
                           + parentPath);
    }
}

Output:

Parent Path: D:

References: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/10/docs/api/java/nio/file/Path.html#getParent()