DIRNAME(3)

NAME
dirname - extract the directory part of a pathname

SYNOPSIS
#include <libgen.h>
char *
dirname(const 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 ‘/’ 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
basename(1), dirname(1), basename(3)

STANDARDS
The dirname() function conforms to xpg4.2.

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

AUTHORS
Todd C. Miller