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



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 '/' charac-
       ters 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  path-
       name.

       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(p);
       basec = strdup(p);
       dname = dirname(e);
       bname = basename(e);
       printf("dirname=%s, basename=%s\n", dname, bname);
       free(e);
       free(e);

RETURN VALUE
       Both  dirname  and basename return pointers to null-termi-
       nated 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(e), basename(e),



GNU                         2000-12-14                 DIRNAME(E)