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 basename() - see below.

       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 '/', and basename() returns the component following the final
       '/'.  Trailing '/' 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 │
       └──────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

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 '/' 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\n", dname, bname);

SEE ALSO

       basename(1), dirname(1)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 4.15 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/.