freebsd man page for dirname

BASENAME(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 					       BASENAME(1)

NAME
     basename, dirname -- return filename or directory portion of pathname

SYNOPSIS
     basename 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.

EXIT STATUS
     The basename and dirname utilities exit 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     The following line sets the shell variable FOO to /usr/bin.

	   FOO=`dirname /usr/bin/trail`

SEE ALSO
     csh(1), sh(1), basename(3), dirname(3)

STANDARDS
     The basename and dirname utilities are expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible.

BSD
								  April 18, 1994							       BSD