basename

basename
basename
Release	January 1979; 47 years ago
Written in	C
Operating system	Unix, Unix-like, IBM i, Plan 9, Inferno
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	coreutils: GPLv3+; Plan 9: MIT License

basename is a shell command for extracting the last name of a file path.

The command 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 in GNU Core Utilities was written by David MacKenzie.^[3] The command is available for Windows as part of the GnuWin32 project^[4] and UnxUtils^[5] and is in IBM i.^[6]

Use

The Single UNIX Specification is: basename path [suffix]. The required argument, path, is a file path string. The second argument, which is optional, is text to remove from the end of the last name if it ends with the text.

Examples

The command reports the last part of a path ignoring any trailing slashes.

$ basename /path/to/filename.ext 
filename.ext

$ basename /path/to/
to

If the suffix argument is included and matches the end of the last name, then that text is removed from the result.

$ basename /path/to/filename.ext .ext
filename

$ basename /path/to/filename.ext xx
filename.ext

References

↑ basename – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
↑ basename(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
↑ basename(1) – Linux User Manual – User Commands from Manned.org
↑ "CoreUtils for Windows". Archived from the original on 2025-07-30. Retrieved 2025-08-09.
↑ "Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities". Archived from the original on 2006-02-09. Retrieved 2020-07-25.
↑ IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (PDF). IBM. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-09-05.

External links

basename: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
basename(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual
basename(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
basename(1) – Inferno General commands Manual

[1] basename – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group

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

[3] basename(1) – Linux User Manual – User Commands from Manned.org

[4] "CoreUtils for Windows". Archived from the original on 2025-07-30. Retrieved 2025-08-09.

[5] "Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities". Archived from the original on 2006-02-09. Retrieved 2020-07-25.

[6] IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (PDF). IBM. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-09-05.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

v t e Unix command-line utilities and shell builtins
File system	cat chattr 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 read sed sort strings tail tr troff 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 dc expr lp od sleep true and false
Categories Standard Unix programs Unix SUS2008 utilities List

v t e GNU Core Utilities command-line interface programs
File system	chcon chmod chown chgrp cksum cp dd df dir dircolors install ln ls mkdir mkfifo mknod mktemp mv realpath rm rmdir shred sync touch truncate vdir
Text utilities	b2sum base32 base64 cat cksum comm csplit cut expand fmt fold head join md5sum nl numfmt 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 hostid id link logname nice nohup nproc pathchk pinky printenv printf pwd readlink runcon seq sleep stat stdbuf stty tee test timeout true tty uname unlink uptime users who whoami yes

v t e Plan 9 command-line interface programs and shell builtins
File system	chmod chgrp cmp cp dd du file gzip ls mkdir pwd rm split tee touch
Processes	kill ps
User environment	passwd who
Text processing	awk basename comm diff ed eqn join sed sort spell strings tail tr troff uniq wc
Shell builtins	echo test
Networking	ip/ipconfig ip/ping netstat
Searching	grep
Software development	ar hoc lex nm strip yacc
Miscellaneous	bc cal fortune sleep
Category

This page was redesigned at the edge.

basename

Use

Examples

See also

References

External links