basename

basename pathname [suffix]

Given a pathname, strip the path prefix and leave just the filename, which is printed on standard output. If specified, a filename suffix (e.g., .c) is removed also. basename is typically invoked via command substitution (`...`) to generate a filename. See also dirname.

The Solaris version of basename allows the suffix to be a pattern of the form accepted by expr. See the entry for expr for more details.

Example

Given the following fragment from a Bourne shell script:

ofile=output_file
myname="`basename $0`"
echo "$myname: QUITTING: can't open $ofile" 1>&2
exit 1

If the script is called do_it, the following message would be printed on standard error:

do_it: QUITTING: can't open output_file