\" $NetBSD: dirname.3,v 1.14 2008/05/10 22:39:40 christos Exp $
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\" by Klaus Klein and Jason R. Thorpe.
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Dd May 10, 2008
Dt DIRNAME 3
Os
Sh NAME
Nm dirname
Nd report the parent directory name of a file pathname
Sh LIBRARY
Lb libc
Sh SYNOPSIS
In libgen.h
Ft char *
Fn dirname "char *path"
Sh DESCRIPTION
The
Fn dirname
function takes a pointer to a character string that contains a pathname,
Ar path ,
and returns a pointer to a string that is a pathname of the parent directory of
Ar path .
Trailing
Sq /
characters in
Ar path
are not counted as part of the path.
Pp
If
Ar path
does not contain a
Sq / ,
then
Fn dirname
returns a pointer to the string
Dq \&. .
Pp
If
Ar path
is a null pointer or points to an empty string,
Fn dirname
returns a pointer to the string
Dq \&. .
Sh RETURN VALUES
The
Fn dirname
function returns a pointer to a string that is the parent directory of
Ar path .
Sh SEE ALSO
Xr dirname 1 ,
Xr basename 3
Sh STANDARDS
Bl -bullet -compact
It
St -xpg4.2
It
St -p1003.1-2001
El
Sh BUGS
If the length of the result is longer than
Dv PATH_MAX
bytes
Pq including the terminating nul ,
the result will be truncated.
Pp
The
Fn dirname
function returns a pointer to static storage that may be overwritten
by subsequent calls to
Fn dirname .
This is not strictly a bug; it is explicitly allowed by
St -p1003.1-2001 .
