Basename

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basename is a standard UNIX computer program, 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 a primarily used in shell scripts.

Usage

The Single UNIX Specification specification for basename is.

basename string [suffix]

string

A pathname

suffix

If specified, basename will also delete the suffix.

Example

$ basename /usr/home/jsmith/basename.wiki ki
basename.wi

Performance

Since basename accepts only one operand, it's usage within the inner loop of shell scripts can be detrimental to performance. Consider

while read file; do
  basename "$file"
done < some-input

The above excerpt would cause a separate process invocation for each line of input. For this reason, sed is typically used instead:

sed 's/.*\///' < some-input

See also

• List of Unix utilities
• dirname

External links

• basename: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 6 from The Open Group
• basename(1): strip directory and suffix from filenames – Linux man page