basename

basename path [suffix]

basename removes directory components from a pathname, leaving only the final filename. It can optionally remove a trailing suffix, making it useful for extracting filenames in shell scripts.The tool is part of GNU coreutils and commonly used in build scripts and file processing pipelines.

-a, --multiple

Process multiple arguments

Remove trailing suffix

Separate output with NUL instead of newline

Given `/path/to/file.txt`:- basename returns `file.txt`- basename with suffix `.txt` returns `file`

Only removes a single trailing suffix exactly matching the argument — `basename file.tar.gz .gz` yields `file.tar`, not `file`. The path does not need to exist on disk. The two-argument form (positional suffix) is the POSIX behavior; `-s` plus `-a` is the GNU extension that supports multiple inputs and a non-positional suffix. In Bash scripts the parameter-expansion forms `${filepath##*/}` and `${name%.txt}` are faster than spawning `basename`.

basename has been part of Unix since the early days, included in POSIX standards, and is available in GNU coreutils since 1992.

dirname(1), realpath(1), readlink(1)