little-things/parent-urls

#!/bin/bash
if [[ "$1" == '--help' || "$1" == '-h' ]]
then
	echo "Usage: parent-urls [--with-original]" >&2
	echo "Take URLs on stdin, remove path components one by one and print the resulting URLs on stdout." >&2
	echo "If --with-original is given, the input URL is printed before the parents." >&2
fi

prog=''
prog+='BEGIN { FS="/"; OFS="/" }' # Set the field separators
if [[ "$1" == '--with-original' ]]
then
	prog+='{ print }' # Print the input URL (if desired)
fi
prog+='/[?#]/ { sub(/[?#].*/, "") }' # Remove query and fragment if present
prog+='/\/$/ { --NF }' # Remove the trailing blank field if the URL ends with a slash
prog+='{ for (i = NF; i > 3; --i) { --NF; print $0 OFS; } }' # One by one, remove the last path component, print remaining fields

exec awk "${prog}"