BASENAME(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual BASENAME(1P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
ing 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 3.266, Path-
name. 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 charac-
ters 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
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, 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
", <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, applica-
tions shall not arbitrarily add slashes 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 util-
ity 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 slashes.
Since the definition of pathname specifies implementation-defined behavior for pathnames starting with two slash characters, this volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 specifies similar implementation-defined behavior for the basename and dirname utilities.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
Parameters and Variables, dirname()
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 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 .
IEEE
/The Open Group 2003 BASENAME(1P)