basename is a standard computer program on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. When basename is given a pathname, it will delete any prefix up to the last slash ('/') character and return the result. basename is described in the Single UNIX Specification and is primarily used in shell scripts.

basename was introduced in X/Open Portability Guidelines issue 2 of 1987. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX and the Single Unix Specification.^[1] It first appeared in 4.4BSD.^[2]

The version of basename bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie.^[3]

The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the GnuWin32 project^[4] and the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities.^[5]

The Single UNIX Specification for basename is.

basename string [suffix]

string

A pathname

suffix

If specified, basename will also delete the suffix.

basename will retrieve the last name from a pathname ignoring any trailing slashes

$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki 
base.wiki

$ basename /home/jsmith/
jsmith

$ basename /
/

basename can also be used to remove the end of the base name, but not the complete base name

$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki .wiki
base

$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki ki
base.wi

$ basename /home/jsmith/base.wiki base.wiki
base.wiki

• List of Unix commands
• dirname
• Path (computing)

The Wikibook Guide to Unix has a page on the topic of: Commands

• basename: return non-directory portion of a pathname – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
• basename(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
• basename(1) – Inferno General commands Manual
• basename(1) – Linux User Commands Manual
• basename(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual