NAME
dirname —
extract the directory part of a
pathname
SYNOPSIS
#include
<libgen.h>
char *
dirname(const
char *path);
DESCRIPTION
Thedirname()
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.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
The dirname() function returns a pointer
to internal storage space allocated on the first call that will be
overwritten by subsequent calls.
Other vendor implementations of dirname()
may store their result in the input buffer, making it safe to use in
multithreaded applications. Future versions of
FreeBSD will follow this approach as well.
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
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