Section (1) basename
Name
basename — strip directory and suffix from filenames
Synopsis
basename
NAME
[SUFFIX
]
basename
OPTION
... NAME
...
DESCRIPTION
Print NAME with any leading directory components removed. If specified, also remove a trailing SUFFIX.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
−a
,−−multiple
-
support multiple arguments and treat each as a NAME
−s
,−−suffix
=SUFFIX/-
remove a trailing SUFFIX; implies
−a
−z
,−−zero
-
end each output line with NUL, not newline
−−help
-
display this help and exit
−−version
-
output version information and exit
EXAMPLES
basename /usr/bin/sort
−> sort
basename include/stdio.h .h
−> stdio
basename −s .h include/stdio.h
−> stdio
basename −a any/str1 any/str2
−> str1 followed by str2
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/basename>
or available locally via: info _zsingle_quotesz_(coreutils) basename invocation_zsingle_quotesz_
COPYRIGHT |
---|
Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. |
Section (3) basename
Name
basename, dirname — parse pathname components
Synopsis
#include <libgen.h>
char
*dirname( |
char *path) ; |
char
*basename( |
char *path) ; |
DESCRIPTION
![]() |
Warning |
---|---|
There are two different functions |
The functions dirname
() and
basename
() break a
null-terminated pathname string into directory and filename
components. In the usual case, dirname
() returns the string up to, but not
including, the final _zsingle_quotesz_/_zsingle_quotesz_, and basename
() returns the component following
the final _zsingle_quotesz_/_zsingle_quotesz_. Trailing _zsingle_quotesz_/_zsingle_quotesz_ characters are not counted as
part of the pathname.
If path
does not
contain a slash, dirname
()
returns the string . while basename
() returns a copy of path
. If path
is the string /, then
both dirname
() and basename
() return the string /. If
path
is a null
pointer or points to an empty string, then both dirname
() and basename
() return the string ..
Concatenating the string returned by dirname
(), a /, and the string returned
by basename
() yields a complete
pathname.
Both dirname
() and
basename
() may modify the
contents of path
, so
it may be desirable to pass a copy when calling one of these
functions.
These functions may return pointers to statically
allocated memory which may be overwritten by subsequent
calls. Alternatively, they may return a pointer to some part
of path
, so that the
string referred to by path
should not be modified or
freed until the pointer returned by the function is no longer
required.
The following list of examples (taken from SUSv2) shows
the strings returned by dirname
() and basename
() for different paths:
path dirname basename /usr/lib /usr lib /usr/ / usr usr . usr / / / . . . .. . ..
RETURN VALUE
Both dirname
() and
basename
() return pointers to
null-terminated strings. (Do not pass these pointers to
free(3).)
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value |
basename (), dirname () |
Thread safety | MT-Safe |
NOTES
There are two different versions of basename
() - the POSIX version described
above, and the GNU version, which one gets after
#define _GNU_SOURCE /* See feature_test_macros(7) */ #include <string.h>
The GNU version never modifies its argument, and returns
the empty string when path
has a trailing slash, and
in particular also when it is /. There is no GNU version of
dirname
().
With glibc, one gets the POSIX version of basename
() when <
libgen.h
>
is included, and the GNU version otherwise.
BUGS
In the glibc implementation, the POSIX versions of these
functions modify the path
argument, and segfault
when called with a static string such as /usr/.
Before glibc 2.2.1, the glibc version of dirname
() did not correctly handle
pathnames with trailing _zsingle_quotesz_/_zsingle_quotesz_ characters, and generated a
segfault if given a NULL argument.
EXAMPLE
The following code snippet demonstrates the use of
basename
() and dirname
():
char *dirc, *basec, *bname, *dname; char *path = /etc/passwd; dirc = strdup(path); basec = strdup(path); dname = dirname(dirc); bname = basename(basec); printf(dirname=%s, basename=%s , dname, bname);
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.04 of the Linux man-pages
project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.
Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com> %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM) Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working professionally. Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. %%%LICENSE_END Created, 14 Dec 2000 by Michael Kerrisk |