use strict; use warnings; { my $str = "/rootdir/sub1/sub2/sub3/sub4/"; print substr($str, 0, rindex($str, "/", length($str) - 2)); } print "\n"; { my $str = "/rootdir/sub1/sub2/sub3/sub4"; print substr($str, 0, rindex($str, "/", length($str) - 2)); }