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DIRNAME(3)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		    DIRNAME(3)

NAME
       dirname, basename - Parse pathname components

SYNOPSIS
       #include <libgen.h>

       char *dirname(char *path);
       char *basename(char *path);

DESCRIPTION
       Warning: there are two different functions basename() - see below.

       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
       '/' characters 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 pathname.

       Both dirname() and basename() may  modify  the  contents	 of  path,  so
       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(path);
	      basec = strdup(path);
	      dname = dirname(dirc);
	      bname = basename(basec);
	      printf("dirname=%s, basename=%s\n", dname, bname);

RETURN VALUE
       Both  dirname()	and  basename()	 return	 pointers  to  null-terminated
       strings.

NOTES
       There  are  two	different  versions  of basename() - the POSIX version
       described above, and the GNU version, which one gets after

	   #define _GNU_SOURCE
	   #include <string.h>

       The GNU version never modifies its  argument,  and  returns  the	 empty
       string  when  path has a trailing slash, and in particular also when it
       is "/".	There is no GNU version of dirname().

       With glibc, one gets the POSIX version of basename() when <libgen.h> is
       included, and the GNU version otherwise.

BUGS
       In  the	glibc  implementation of the POSIX versions of these functions
       they modify their argument, and segfault	 when  called  with  a	static
       string  like  "/usr/".	Before	glibc  2.2.1,  the  glibc  version  of
       dirname() did not correctly handle pathnames with trailing '/'  characā€
       ters, and generated a segfault if given a NULL argument.

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.1-2001

SEE ALSO
       basename(1), dirname(1)

GNU				  2000-12-14			    DIRNAME(3)
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