| dirname(3) | extract the directory portion of a pathname |
| File::Basename, basename, dirname, fileparse(3p) | Parse file paths into directory, filename and suffix. |
| DIRNAME(3) | Library Functions Manual | DIRNAME(3) |
dirname — extract
the directory portion of a pathname
#include
<libgen.h>
char *
dirname(const
char *path);
The
dirname()
function is the converse of
basename(3); it returns a
pointer to the parent directory of the pathname pointed to by
path. Any trailing ‘/’ characters are
not counted as part of the directory name. If path is
a null pointer, the empty string, or contains no ‘/’
characters, dirname() returns a pointer to the
string ".", signifying the current directory.
On successful completion, dirname()
returns a pointer to the parent directory of path.
If dirname() fails, a null pointer is
returned and the global variable errno is set to
indicate the error.
The following error codes may be set in errno:
ENAMETOOLONG]PATH_MAX.The dirname() function conforms to the
X/Open System Interfaces option of the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
(“POSIX.1”) specification.
The dirname() function first appeared in
OpenBSD 2.2.
Todd C. Miller
dirname() returns a pointer to internal
static storage space that will be overwritten by subsequent calls.
Other vendor implementations of dirname()
may modify the contents of the string passed to
dirname(); this should be taken into account when
writing code which calls this function if portability is desired.
| March 8, 2019 | OpenBSD-6.5 |