.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1997 Todd C. Miller <Todd.Miller@courtesan.com>
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
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.\" $OpenBSD: basename.3,v 1.11 1999/06/04 01:30:10 aaron Exp $
.\"
.Dd August 17, 1997
.Dt BASENAME 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm basename
.Nd extract the base portion of a pathname
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <libgen.h>
.Ft char *
.Fn basename "const char *path"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn basename
function
returns the last component from the pathname pointed to by
.Ar path ,
deleting any trailing
.Sq \&/
characters.  If
.Ar path
consists entirely of
.Sq \&/
characters, a pointer to the string
.Qq \&/
is returned.  If
.Ar path
is a null pointer or the empty string, a pointer to the string
.Qq \&.
is returned.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
On successful completion,
.Fn basename
returns a pointer to the last component of
.Ar path .
.Pp
If
.Fn basename
fails, a null pointer is returned and the global variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate the error.
.Sh ERRORS
The following error codes may be set in
.Va errno :
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
The path component to be returned was larger than
.Dv MAXPATHLEN .
.El
.Sh WARNINGS
.Fn basename
returns a pointer to internal static storage space that will be overwritten
by subsequent calls.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr basename 1 ,
.Xr dirname 1 ,
.Xr dirname 3
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Fn basename
function conforms to
.St -xpg4.2 .
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn basename
function first appeared in
.Ox 2.2 .
.Sh AUTHOR
Todd C. Miller <Todd.Miller@courtesan.com>