BASENAME(1) General Commands Manual BASENAME(1)
NAME
basename, dirnamereturn filename or directory portion of pathname
SYNOPSIS
basename
string [suffix]
dirname
string
DESCRIPTION
basename deletes any prefix ending with the last slash ‘/' character present in string, and a suffix, if given. The resulting filename is written to the standard output. A non-existent suffix is ignored.
 
dirname deletes the filename portion, beginning with the last slash ‘/' character to the end of string, and writes the result to the standard output.
EXIT STATUS
Both 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
STANDARDS
The basename and dirname utilities conform to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (“POSIX.2”).