manpagez: man pages & more
man dirname(3)
Home | html | info | man
dirname(3)               BSD Library Functions Manual               dirname(3)


NAME

     dirname -- extract the directory part of a pathname


SYNOPSIS

     #include <libgen.h>

     char *
     dirname(char *path);


DESCRIPTION

     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 `/' charac-
     ters, dirname() returns a pointer to the string ".", signifying the cur-
     rent directory.


IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

     The dirname() function returns a pointer to internal storage space allo-
     cated on the first call that will be overwritten by subsequent calls.

     Other vendor implementations of dirname() may modify the contents of the
     string passed to dirname(); if portability is desired, this should be
     taken into account when writing code which calls this function.


LEGACY SYNOPSIS

     #include <libgen.h>

     char *
     dirname(const char *path);

     In legacy mode, path will not be changed.


RETURN VALUES

     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.


ERRORS

     The following error codes may be set in errno:

     [ENAMETOOLONG]     The path component to be returned was larger than
                        MAXPATHLEN.


SEE ALSO

     basename(1), dirname(1), basename(3), compat(5)


STANDARDS

     The dirname() function conforms to X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4,
     Version 2 (``XPG4.2'').


HISTORY

     The dirname() function first appeared in OpenBSD 2.2 and FreeBSD 4.2.


AUTHORS

     Todd C. Miller

BSD                            October 12, 2006                            BSD

Mac OS X 10.8 - Generated Mon Aug 27 16:11:37 CDT 2012
© manpagez.com 2000-2024
Individual documents may contain additional copyright information.