basename

basename
Initial release	January 1979; 43 years ago
Operating system	Unix, Unix-like, Plan 9, Inferno
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	coreutils: GPLv3+

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 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

References[]

^ basename – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
^ basename(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
^ basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
^ CoreUtils for Windows
^ Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities

External links[]

basename: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
basename(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
basename(1) – Inferno General commands Manual
basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
basename(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual

[1] basename – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group

[2] basename(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual

[3] basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual

[4] CoreUtils for Windows

[5] Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

v t Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins
File system	cat chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fuser ln ls mkdir mv pax pwd rm rmdir split tee touch type umask
Processes	at bg crontab fg kill nice ps time
User environment	env exit logname mesg talk tput uname who write
Text processing	awk basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fold head iconv join m4 more nl paste patch printf sed sort strings tail tr uniq vi wc xargs
Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait
Searching	find grep
Documentation	man
Software development	ar ctags lex make nm strip yacc
Miscellaneous	bc cal expr lp od sleep true and false
Categories Standard Unix programs Unix SUS2008 utilities List

v t GNU Core Utilities command-line interface programs
File system	chmod chown chgrp cksum cp dd df dir install ln ls mkdir mkfifo mknod mktemp mv rm rmdir shred sync touch truncate vdir
Text utilities	base32 base64 cat cksum comm csplit cut expand fmt fold head join md5sum nl od paste ptx pr sha1sum shuf sort split sum tac tail tr tsort unexpand uniq wc
Shell utilities	arch basename chroot date dirname du echo env expr factor false groups id link logname nice nohup printenv printf pwd seq sleep stat tee test timeout true tty uname unlink uptime users who whoami yes