Basename

Last updated
basename
Initial releaseJanuary 1979;43 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.

Contents

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 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

Related Research Articles

uniq is a utility command on Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems which, when fed a text file or standard input, outputs the text with adjacent identical lines collapsed to one, unique line of text.

ls Command to list files and directories in Unix and Unix-like operating systems

In computing, ls is a command to list computer files and directories in Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is specified by POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification.

pwd Directory information command on various operating systems

In Unix-like and some other operating systems, the pwd command writes the full pathname of the current working directory to the standard output.

uname Standard UNIX utility that prints name and other details about the machine

uname is a computer program in Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that prints the name, version and other details about the current machine and the operating system running on it.

ln (Unix) Unix file management utility

The ln command is a standard Unix command utility used to create a hard link or a symbolic link (symlink) to an existing file or directory. The use of a hard link allows multiple filenames to be associated with the same file since a hard link points to the inode of a given file, the data of which is stored on disk. On the other hand, symbolic links are special files that refer to other files by name.

chown Command used on Unix-like systems to change the owner of a file

The command chown, an abbreviation of change owner, is used on Unix and Unix-like operating systems to change the owner of file system files, directories. Unprivileged (regular) users who wish to change the group membership of a file that they own may use chgrp.

In computing, touch is a command used to update the access date and/or modification date of a computer file or directory. It is included in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, TSC's FLEX, Digital Research/Novell DR DOS, the AROS shell, the Microware OS-9 shell, and ReactOS. The command is also available for FreeDOS and Microsoft Windows.

join is a command in Unix and Unix-like operating systems that merges the lines of two sorted text files based on the presence of a common field. It is similar to the join operator used in relational databases but operating on text files.

tr (Unix) Unix text formatting utility

tr is a command in Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems. It is an abbreviation of translate or transliterate, indicating its operation of replacing or removing specific characters in its input data set.

wc (Unix) Unix command utility

wc is a command in Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems. The program reads either standard input or a list of computer files and generates one or more of the following statistics: newline count, word count, and byte count. If a list of files is provided, both individual file and total statistics follow.

df (Unix) Standard Unix command

df is a standard Unix command used to display the amount of available disk space for file systems on which the invoking user has appropriate read access. df is typically implemented using the statfs or statvfs system calls.

nl is a Unix utility for numbering lines, either from a file or from standard input, reproducing output on standard output.

du (Unix) Standard Unix program

du is a standard Unix program used to estimate file space usage—space used under a particular directory or files on a file system. A Windows commandline version of this program is part of Sysinternals suite by Mark Russinovich.

cmp (Unix)

In computing, cmp is a command-line utility on Unix and Unix-like operating systems that compares two files of any type and writes the results to the standard output. By default, cmp is silent if the files are the same; if they differ, the byte and line number at which the first difference occurred is reported. The command is also available in the OS-9 shell.

mv is a Unix command that moves one or more files or directories from one place to another. If both filenames are on the same filesystem, this results in a simple file rename; otherwise the file content is copied to the new location and the old file is removed. Using mv requires the user to have write permission for the directories the file will move between. This is because mv changes the content of both directories involved in the move. When using the mv command on files located on the same filesystem, the file's timestamp is not updated.

rm (Unix) Unix command utility

rm is a basic command on Unix and Unix-like operating systems used to remove objects such as computer files, directories and symbolic links from file systems and also special files such as device nodes, pipes and sockets, similar to the del command in MS-DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows. The command is also available in the EFI shell.

In computing, sleep is a command in Unix, Unix-like and other operating systems that suspends program execution for a specified time.

In computing, which is a command for various operating systems used to identify the location of executables. The command is available in Unix and Unix-like systems, the AROS shell, for FreeDOS and for Microsoft Windows. The functionality of the which command is similar to some implementations of the type command. POSIX specifies a command named command that also covers this functionality.

dirname is a standard computer program on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. When dirname is given a pathname, it will delete any suffix beginning with the last slash ('/') character and return the result. dirname is described in the Single UNIX Specification and is primarily used in shell scripts.

The csplit command in Unix and Unix-like operating systems is a utility that is used to split a file into two or more smaller files determined by context lines.

References