The dirname command will give you the path of the file that you provide as
parameter, up to its parent directory. If the parameter is an absolute path,
the absolute containing directory will be returned, otherwise it will be the
relative path.
For example, for the file /home/marios/.bash_aliases:
{% highlight bash %} mariosz@super-mario:~$ dirname /home/marios/.bashaliases /home/marios mariosz@super-mario:~$ dirname ~/.bashaliases /home/marios mariosz@super-mario:~$ dirname .bash_aliases . {% endhighlight %}