dirname(3c) [sunos man page]

dirname(3C)						   Standard C Library Functions 					       dirname(3C)

NAME

       dirname - report the parent directory name of a file path name

SYNOPSIS

       #include <libgen.h>

       char *dirname(char *path);

DESCRIPTION

       The dirname() function takes a pointer to a character string that contains a pathname, and returns a pointer to a string that is a pathname
       of the parent directory of that file.  Trailing '/' characters in the path are not counted as part of the path.

       If path does not contain a '/', then dirname() returns a pointer to the string "." .  If path is a null	pointer  or  points  to  an  empty
       string, dirname() returns a pointer to the string "." .

RETURN VALUES

       The  dirname() function returns a pointer to a string that is the parent directory of path. If path is a null pointer or points to an empty
       string, a pointer to a string "." is returned.

ERRORS

       No errors are defined.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Changing the Current Directory to the Parent Directory.

       The following code fragment reads a pathname, changes the current working directory  to	the  parent  directory	of  the  named	file  (see
       chdir(2)), and opens the file.

       char path[[MAXPATHLEN], *pathcopy;
       int fd;
       fgets(path, MAXPATHLEN, stdin);
       pathcopy = strdup(path);
       chdir(dirname(pathcopy));
       fd = open(basename(path), O_RDONLY);

       Example 2: Sample Input and Output Strings for dirname().

       In  the following table, the input string is the value pointed to by path, and the output string is the return value of the dirname() func-
       tion.

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |       Input String	     |	     Output String	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |"/usr/lib""		     |"/usr"			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |"/usr/" 		     |"/"			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |"usr"			     |"/"			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |"/"			     |"/"			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |"."			     |"."			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |".."			     |"."			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

USAGE

       The dirname() function modifies the string pointed to by path.

       The dirname() and basename(3C) functions together yield a complete pathname.  The expression dirname(path)  obtains  the  pathname  of  the
       directory where basename(path) is found.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |Standard			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |MT-Level		     |MT-Safe			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       basename(1), chdir(2), basename(3C), attributes(5), standards(5)

SunOS 5.10							    18 Mar 2002 						       dirname(3C)

Check Out this Related Man Page

DIRNAME(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							DIRNAME(3)

NAME

       dirname, basename - Parse pathname components

SYNOPSIS

       #include <libgen.h>

       char *dirname(char *path);
       char *basename(char *path);

DESCRIPTION

       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 if you need to preserve the pathname string, copies should be passed to these
       functions.  Furthermore, dirname and basename may return pointers to statically allocated memory which may  be  overwritten  by	subsequent
       calls.

       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"
       "/"	      "/"	     "/"
       "."	      "."	     "."
       ".."	      "."	     ".."

EXAMPLE

       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);
       free(dirc);
       free(basec);

RETURN VALUE

       Both dirname and basename return pointers to null-terminated strings.

BUGS

       In  versions  of glibc up to and including 2.2.1, dirname does not correctly handle pathnames with trailing '/' characters, and generates a
       segmentation violation if given a NULL argument.

CONFORMING TO

       SUSv2

SEE ALSO

       dirname(1), basename(1),

GNU
								    2000-12-14								DIRNAME(3)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

dirname(3c) [sunos man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page