dirname display directory components of path name	Command
	SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION EXAMPLES DIAGNOSTICS PORTABILITY SEE ALSO

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SYNOPSIS

dirname pathname

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DESCRIPTION

dirname strips off the trailing part of a file name. The result is the path name of the directory that contains the file. This is useful in shell scripts.

Note:

dirname makes no attempt to validate the path name; for validation, use the pathchk command.

dirname follows these rules:

• If pathname is //, return one slash
  • Otherwise, if it is all slashes, return one slash
  • Otherwise, remove all trailing slashes

• If there are no slashes remaining in pathname, return period (.)
  • Otherwise, remove trailing non-slash characters

• If the remaining string is //, return it
  • Otherwise, remove any trailing slashes

• If the resulting string is empty, return period (.)
  • Otherwise, return the resulting string

Note:

dirname returns device names as you type them in pathname -- if you include a slash, dirname returns the device name with the following slash; if you don't include a slash, the device name is returned with no following slash.

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EXAMPLES

The command

dirname src/lib/printf.c

produces

src/lib

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DIAGNOSTICS

Possible exit status values are:

0

Successful completion.

>0

An error occurred.

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PORTABILITY

POSIX.2. x/OPEN Portability Guide 4.0.

On UNIX and POSIX-compliant systems, backslash is a valid file name character and is not stripped.

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SEE ALSO

Commands:

basename, pathchk