basename(1) — Linux manual page

BASENAME(1)                   User Commands                   BASENAME(1)

NAME         top

       basename - strip directory and suffix from filenames

SYNOPSIS         top

       basename NAME [SUFFIX]
       basename OPTION... NAME...

DESCRIPTION         top

       Print NAME with any leading directory components removed.  If
       specified, also remove a trailing SUFFIX.

       Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short
       options too.

       -a, --multiple
              support multiple arguments and treat each as a NAME

       -s, --suffix=SUFFIX
              remove a trailing SUFFIX; implies -a

       -z, --zero
              end each output line with NUL, not newline

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

EXAMPLES         top

       basename /usr/bin/sort
              -> "sort"

       basename include/stdio.h .h
              -> "stdio"

       basename -s .h include/stdio.h
              -> "stdio"

       basename -a any/str1 any/str2
              -> "str1" followed by "str2"

AUTHOR         top

       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU coreutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       dirname(1), readlink(1)

       Full documentation
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/basename>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) basename invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the tarball coreutils-9.7.tar.xz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2025-08-11.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the
       page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
       in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

GNU coreutils 9.7               April 2025                    BASENAME(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dirname(1),  pmsignal(1),  basename(3)

HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH.