quick one: cut'ing or seding directory path to get just the filename

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

Hi all,

If I have a variable $F
that looks something like the following:
/usr/bin/dothis.ksh
and or
/usr/contrib/bin/dothat.ksh

what's the best way to extract the filename
echo $F | nice -and -sweet

Thanks!
Bill

[Santosh Nair_1]

How about using the basename command? Is that what you're looking for?

-Santosh

[Santosh Nair_1 · Accepted solution]

I guess I should have been a bit more descriptive...i.e.

FILENAME=$(basename $F)

not sure if this is a requirement, but you can also strip of the suffix,i.e.:

if $F=/usr/contrib/bin/something.ksh

FILENAME=$(basename $F .ksh)

$FILENAME should be set to the word something.

-Santosh

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

nice one santosh,
That was just what I was looking for..

It would have saved me so much pain if I knew about that around a year ago!!

Thanks again,
Bill

[Santosh Nair_1]

You're welcome.

Also just FYI, you can use the dirname command to get the directory part of the full path. Its complimentary to the basename command.

-Santosh

[Volker Borowski]

Hi,

something I learned yesterday from this forum:
This solution will not cover filenames with blanks! Enclose $F in double quotes !

# echo $F
/tmp/a b c
# FILENAME=$(basename "$F")
# echo $FILENAME
a b c
#

Volker

[David Lodge]

basename works and is easy to remember, for efficiency you may try using the quick shell construct:

NewPath=${F##*/}

(Essentially NewPath = $F but remove the largest section from the front of F which matches the glob '*/')

dave
(shell should be efficient :-)

[Steve Post]

I did not know about dirname and basename either. I ended up doing this:

LIST=`echo "$1" | sed 's#/# #g' `
for I in $LIST
do
LASTI=$I
done
echo $LASTI

Where $1 is your fullpath'd file /a/b/c/file1
.....or as said above: basename $1