Basename

basename

Initial release	January 1979 (1979-01)
Operating system	Unix and Unix-like
Type	Command
License	GNU GPL v3

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.

The version of basename bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie.

Usage

The Single UNIX Specification 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

External links

• basename: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
• basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
• basename(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual