[Go to CFHT Home Page] Man Pages
Back to Software Index  BORDER=0Manpage Top Level
    dirname(3G) manual page Table of Contents

Name

dirname - report the parent directory name of a file path name

Synopsis

cc [ flag ... ] file ... -lgen [ library ... ]

#include <libgen.h>

char *dirname(char *path);

MT-Level

MT-Safe

Description

Given a pointer to a null-terminated character string that contains a file system path name, dirname() returns a string that is the parent directory of that file. In doing this, it may place a null byte in the path name after the next to last element, so the content of path must be disposable. The returned string should not be deallocated by the caller. Trailing ‘‘/’’ characters in the path are not counted as part of the path.

If path or *path is zero, a pointer to a static constant ‘‘.’’ is returned.

dirname() and basename() together yield a complete path name. dirname (path) is the directory where basename (path) is found.

Examples

A simple file name and the strings ‘‘.’’ and ‘‘..’’ all have ‘‘.’’ as their return value. 

Input string    Output pointer

/usr/lib    /usr
/usr/    /
usr    .
/    /
.    .
..    .

The following code reads a path name, changes directory to the parent directory of the named file (see chdir(2) ), and opens the file. 


char path[100], *pathcopy;
int fd;
gets (path);
pathcopy = strdup (path);
chdir (dirname (pathcopy) );
free (pathcopy);
fd = open (basename (path), O_RDONLY);

See Also

basename(1) , chdir(2) , basename(3G)

Notes

When compiling multi-thread applications, the _REENTRANT flag must be defined on the compile line. This flag should only be used in multi-thread applications.

Table of Contents