May 10, 2008 DIRNAME 3

### NAME

dirname - report the parent directory name of a file pathname

### LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

### SYNOPSIS

```char``*` dirname(```char *path`)

### DESCRIPTION

The dirname(``) function takes a pointer to a character string that contains a pathname, path, and returns a pointer to a string that is a pathname of the parent directory of path. Trailing `/' characters in path are not counted as part of the path.

If path does not contain a `/', then dirname(``) returns a pointer to the string ``.''.

If path is a null pointer or points to an empty string, dirname(``) returns a pointer to the string ``.''.

### RETURN VALUES

The dirname(``) function returns a pointer to a string that is the parent directory of path.

### SEE ALSO

dirname(1), basename(3)

### STANDARDS

- X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (``XPG4.2'')
- IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'')

### BUGS

If the length of the result is longer than ```PATH_MAX` bytes (including the terminating nul), the result will be truncated.

The dirname(``) function returns a pointer to static storage that may be overwritten by subsequent calls to dirname(``). This is not strictly a bug; it is explicitly allowed by IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') .