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PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface
may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface
may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
basename — return non-directory portion of a pathname
SYNOPSIS
basename string [suffix]
DESCRIPTION
The string operand shall be treated as a pathname, as defined in the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 3.267, Pathname. The string string shall be converted to the filename
corresponding to the last pathname component in string and then the suffix string suffix, if present,
shall be removed. This shall be done by performing actions equivalent to the following steps in order:
1. If string is a null string, it is unspecified whether the resulting string is '.' or a null string.
In either case, skip steps 2 through 6.
2. If string is "//", it is implementation-defined whether steps 3 to 6 are skipped or processed.
3. If string consists entirely of <slash> characters, string shall be set to a single <slash> character.
In this case, skip steps 4 to 6.
4. If there are any trailing <slash> characters in string, they shall be removed.
5. If there are any <slash> characters remaining in string, the prefix of string up to and including the
last <slash> character in string shall be removed.
6. If the suffix operand is present, is not identical to the characters remaining in string, and is
identical to a suffix of the characters remaining in string, the suffix suffix shall be removed from
string. Otherwise, string is not modified by this step. It shall not be considered an error if
suffix is not found in string.
The resulting string shall be written to standard output.
OPTIONS
None.
OPERANDS
The following operands shall be supported:
string A string.
suffix A string.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of basename:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the
Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the
precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters
(for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic
messages written to standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The basename utility shall write a line to the standard output in the following format:
"%s\n", <resulting string>
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
The definition of pathname specifies implementation-defined behavior for pathnames starting with two
<slash> characters. Therefore, applications shall not arbitrarily add <slash> characters to the beginning
of a pathname unless they can ensure that there are more or less than two or are prepared to deal with
the implementation-defined consequences.
EXAMPLES
If the string string is a valid pathname:
$(basename -- "string")
produces a filename that could be used to open the file named by string in the directory returned by:
$(dirname -- "string")
If the string string is not a valid pathname, the same algorithm is used, but the result need not be a
valid filename. The basename utility is not expected to make any judgements about the validity of string
as a pathname; it just follows the specified algorithm to produce a result string.
The following shell script compiles /usr/src/cmd/cat.c and moves the output to a file named cat in the
current directory when invoked with the argument /usr/src/cmd/cat or with the argument
/usr/src/cmd/cat.c:
c99 -- "$(dirname -- "$1")/$(basename -- "$1" .c).c" &&
mv a.out "$(basename -- "$1" .c)"
RATIONALE
The behaviors of basename and dirname have been coordinated so that when string is a valid pathname:
$(basename -- "string")
would be a valid filename for the file in the directory:
$(dirname -- "string")
This would not work for the early proposal versions of these utilities due to the way it specified
handling of trailing <slash> characters.
Since the definition of pathname specifies implementation-defined behavior for pathnames starting with
two <slash> characters, this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 specifies similar implementation-defined behavior for
the basename and dirname utilities.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
Section 2.5, Parameters and Variables, dirname
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 3.267, Pathname, Chapter 8, Environment Variables
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc
and The Open Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the event
of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced
during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .