Basename
Initial release | January 1979; 45 years ago (1979-01) |
---|---|
Written in | C |
Operating system | Unix, Unix-like, Plan 9, Inferno |
Platform | Cross-platform |
Type | Command |
License | coreutils: GPLv3+ Plan 9: MIT License |
basename is a standard computer program on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. When basename is given a pathname, it will delete any prefix up to the last slash ('/'
) character and return the result. basename is described in the Single UNIX Specification and is primarily used in shell scripts.
History
basename
was introduced in X/Open Portability Guidelines issue 2 of 1987. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX and the Single Unix Specification.[1] It first appeared in 4.4BSD.[2]
The version of basename
bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie.[3]
The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the GnuWin32 project[4] and the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities.[5]
Usage
The Single UNIX Specification for basename is.
basename string [suffix]
- string
- A pathname
- suffix
- If specified, basename will also delete the suffix.
Examples
basename will retrieve the last name from a pathname ignoring any trailing slashes
$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki base.wiki $ basename /home/jsmith/ jsmith $ basename / /
basename can also be used to remove the end of the base name, but not the complete base name
$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki .wiki base $ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki ki base.wi $ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki base.wiki base.wiki
See also
- List of Unix commands
- dirname
- Path (computing)
References
External links
basename
: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Groupbasename(1)
– Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1basename(1)
– Inferno General commands Manualbasename(1)
– Linux User Commands Manualbasename(1)
– OpenBSD General Commands Manual
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