'\" et
.TH BASENAME "3P" 2013 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual"
.SH PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

.SH NAME
basename
\(em return the last component of a pathname
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
#include <libgen.h>
.P
char *basename(char *\fIpath\fP);
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
\fIbasename\fR()
function shall take the pathname pointed to by
.IR path
and return a pointer to the final component of the pathname, deleting
any trailing
.BR '/' 
characters.
.P
If the string pointed to by
.IR path
consists entirely of the
.BR '/' 
character,
\fIbasename\fR()
shall return a pointer to the string
.BR \(dq/\(dq .
If the string pointed to by
.IR path
is exactly
.BR \(dq//\(dq ,
it is implementation-defined whether
.BR '/' 
or
.BR \(dq//\(dq 
is returned.
.P
If
.IR path
is a null pointer or points to an empty string,
\fIbasename\fR()
shall return a pointer to the string
.BR \(dq.\(dq .
.P
The
\fIbasename\fR()
function may modify the string pointed to by
.IR path ,
and may return a pointer to internal storage. The returned pointer might
be invalidated or the storage might be overwritten by a subsequent call to
\fIbasename\fR().
.P
The
\fIbasename\fR()
function need not be thread-safe.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The
\fIbasename\fR()
function shall return a pointer to the final component of
.IR path .
.SH ERRORS
No errors are defined.
.LP
.IR "The following sections are informative."
.SH EXAMPLES
.SS "Using basename(\|)"
.P
The following program fragment returns a pointer to the value
.IR lib ,
which is the base name of
.BR /usr/lib .
.sp
.RS 4
.nf
\fB
#include <libgen.h>
\&...
char *name = "/usr/lib";
char *base;
.P
base = basename(name);
\&...
.fi \fR
.P
.RE
.SS "Sample Input and Output Strings for basename(\|)"
.P
In the following table, the input string is the value pointed to by
.IR path ,
and the output string is the return value of the
\fIbasename\fR()
function.
.TS
center box tab(!);
cB | cB
lf5 | lf5.
Input String!Output String
_
"/usr/lib"!"lib"
"/usr/"!"usr"
"/"!"/"
"///"!"/"
"//usr//lib//"!"lib"
.TE
.SH "APPLICATION USAGE"
None.
.SH RATIONALE
None.
.SH "FUTURE DIRECTIONS"
None.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR "\fIdirname\fR\^(\|)"
.P
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1\(hy2008,
.IR "\fB<libgen.h>\fP"
.P
The Shell and Utilities volume of POSIX.1\(hy2008,
.IR "\fIbasename\fR\^"
.SH COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
(This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.unix.org/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear
in this page are most likely
to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to
man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .