dirname

dirname is a standard UNIX computer program. 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.

Usage

The Single UNIX Specification specification for dirname is.

dirname string

string

A pathname

Example

$ dirname /usr/home/carpetsmoker/dirname.wiki
/usr/home/carpetsmoker

Performance

Since dirname accepts only one operand, its usage within the inner loop of shell scripts can be detrimental to performance. Consider

while read file; do
        dirname "$file"
done < some-input

The above excerpt would cause a separate process invocation for each line of input. For this reason, shell substitution is typically used instead

echo "${file%/*}";

See also

• List of Unix utilities
• basename

External links

• dirname: return the directory portion of a pathname – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
• dirname(1): strip nondirectory suffix from filenames – Linux User Commands Manual