1.\" 2.\" Copyright (c) 1997 Todd C. Miller <Todd.Miller@courtesan.com> 3.\" All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 6.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 7.\" are met: 8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 9.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 10.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 12.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 13.\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products 14.\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, 17.\" INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY 18.\" AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL 19.\" THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, 20.\" EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, 21.\" PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; 22.\" OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, 23.\" WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR 24.\" OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF 25.\" ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 26.\" 27.\" $OpenBSD: dirname.3,v 1.9 2000/04/18 03:01:25 aaron Exp $ 28.\" $FreeBSD$ 29.\" 30.Dd October 12, 2006 31.Dt DIRNAME 3 32.Os 33.Sh NAME 34.Nm dirname 35.Nd extract the directory part of a pathname 36.Sh SYNOPSIS 37.In libgen.h 38.Ft char * 39.Fn dirname "const char *path" 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Fn dirname 43function 44is the converse of 45.Xr basename 3 ; 46it returns a pointer to the parent directory of the pathname pointed to by 47.Fa path . 48Any trailing 49.Sq \&/ 50characters are not counted as part of the directory 51name. 52If 53.Fa path 54is a null pointer, the empty string, or contains no 55.Sq \&/ 56characters, 57.Fn dirname 58returns a pointer to the string 59.Qq \&. , 60signifying the current directory. 61.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES 62The 63.Fn dirname 64function 65returns a pointer to internal storage space allocated on the first call 66that will be overwritten 67by subsequent calls. 68.Pp 69Other vendor implementations of 70.Fn dirname 71may modify the contents of the string passed to 72.Fn dirname ; 73this should be taken into account when writing code which calls this function 74if portability is desired. 75.Sh RETURN VALUES 76On successful completion, 77.Fn dirname 78returns a pointer to the parent directory of 79.Fa path . 80.Pp 81If 82.Fn dirname 83fails, a null pointer is returned and the global variable 84.Va errno 85is set to indicate the error. 86.Sh ERRORS 87The following error codes may be set in 88.Va errno : 89.Bl -tag -width Er 90.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG 91The path component to be returned was larger than 92.Dv MAXPATHLEN . 93.El 94.Sh SEE ALSO 95.Xr basename 1 , 96.Xr dirname 1 , 97.Xr basename 3 98.Sh STANDARDS 99The 100.Fn dirname 101function conforms to 102.St -xpg4.2 . 103.Sh HISTORY 104The 105.Fn dirname 106function first appeared in 107.Ox 2.2 108and 109.Fx 4.2 . 110.Sh AUTHORS 111.An "Todd C. Miller" Aq Todd.Miller@courtesan.com 112