NAME

dirname — report the parent directory name of a file pathname

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <libgen.h>

char *
dirname(char *path);

DESCRIPTION

The dirname() function takes a pointer to a character string that contains a pathname, path, and returns a pointer to a string that is a pathname of the parent directory of path. Trailing ‘/’ characters in path are not counted as part of the path.

If path does not contain a ‘/’, then dirname() returns a pointer to the string “.”.

If path is a null pointer or points to an empty string, dirname() returns a pointer to the string “.”.

RETURN VALUES

The dirname() function returns a pointer to a string that is the parent directory of path.

SEE ALSO

dirname(1), basename(3)

STANDARDS

• X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (“XPG4.2”)
• IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”)

BUGS

If the length of the result is longer than PATH_MAX bytes (including the terminating nul), the result will be truncated.

The dirname() function returns a pointer to static storage that may be overwritten by subsequent calls to dirname(). This is not strictly a bug; it is explicitly allowed by IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).