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 the last component of a pathname

SYNOPSIS

       #include <libgen.h>

       char *basename(char *path);

DESCRIPTION

       The basename() function shall take the pathname pointed to by path and return a pointer to
       the final component of the pathname, deleting any trailing '/' characters.

       If the string pointed to by path consists entirely of the '/' character, basename()  shall
       return  a pointer to the string "/".  If the string pointed to by path is exactly "//", it
       is implementation-defined whether '/' or "//" is returned.

       If path is a null pointer or points to an empty string, basename() shall return a  pointer
       to the string ".".

       The basename() function may modify the string pointed to by path, and may return a pointer
       to internal storage. The returned pointer might be invalidated or  the  storage  might  be
       overwritten  by  a  subsequent  call  to  basename().   The returned pointer might also be
       invalidated if the calling thread is terminated.

       The basename() function need not be thread-safe.

RETURN VALUE

       The basename() function shall return a pointer to the final component of path.

ERRORS

       No errors are defined.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

   Using basename()
       The following program fragment returns a pointer to the value lib, which is the base  name
       of /usr/lib.

           #include <libgen.h>
           ...
           char name[] = "/usr/lib";
           char *base;

           base = basename(name);
           ...

   Sample  Input  and  Output Strings for the basename() and dirname() Functions and the basename
       and dirname Utilities
       .TS
         ┌──────────────┬───────────┬────────────┬──────────────┬─────────────────┬───────────┐
         │  basename()  │           │            │   basename   │     Output      │  Output   │
         │and dirname() │  String   │   String   │ and dirname  │   Written by    │Written by │
         │Functions path│Returned by│Returned by │  Utilities   │    basename     │ dirname   │
         │   Argument   │basename() │ dirname()  │string Operand│     Utility     │ Utility   │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"usr"         │"usr"      │"."         │usr           │usr              │.          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"usr/"        │"usr"      │"."         │usr/          │usr              │.          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │""            │"."        │"."         │""            │. or empty string│.          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"/"           │"/"        │"/"         │/             │/                │/          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"//"          │"/" or "//"│"/" or "//" │//            │/ or //          │/ or //    │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"///"         │"/"        │"/"         │///           │/                │/          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"/usr/"       │"usr"      │"/"         │/usr/         │usr              │/          │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"/usr/lib"    │"lib"      │"/usr"      │/usr/lib      │lib              │/usr       │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"//usr//lib//"│"lib"      │"//usr"     │//usr//lib//  │lib              │//usr      │
         ├──────────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────┤
         │"/home//dwc// │"test"     │"/home//dwc"│/home//dwc//  │test             │/home//dwc │
         │test"         │           │            │test          │                 │           │
--

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       dirname()

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <libgen.h>

       The Shell and Utilities volume of POSIX.1‐2017, basename

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1-2017,  Standard  for  Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface
       (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C)  2018  by
       the  Institute  of  Electrical  and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  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.opengroup.org/unix/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 .