BASENAME(1) BSD General Commands Manual BASENAME(1)NAME
basename, dirname — return filename or directory portion of pathname
SYNOPSISbasename string [suffix]
basename [-a] [-s suffix] string [...]
dirname string
DESCRIPTION
The basename utility deletes any prefix ending with the last slash ‘/’
character present in string (after first stripping trailing slashes), and
a suffix, if given. The suffix is not stripped if it is identical to the
remaining characters in string. The resulting filename is written to the
standard output. A non-existent suffix is ignored. If -a is specified,
then every argument is treated as a string as if basename were invoked
with just one argument. If -s is specified, then the suffix is taken as
its argument, and all other arguments are treated as a string.
The dirname utility deletes the filename portion, beginning with the last
slash ‘/’ character to the end of string (after first stripping trailing
slashes), and writes the result to the standard output.
EXAMPLES
The following line sets the shell variable FOO to /usr/bin.
FOO=`dirname /usr/bin/trail`
DIAGNOSTICS
The basename and dirname utilities exit 0 on success, and >0 if an error
occurs.
SEE ALSOcsh(1), sh(1)STANDARDS
The basename and dirname utilities are expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2
(“POSIX.2”) compatible.
BSD April 18, 1994 BSD
