How to extract filename from path

Question

There should be something elegant in Linux API/POSIX to extract base file name from full path

Answer 1

The basename() function returns the last component of a path, which could be a folder name and not a file name. There are two versions of the basename() function: the GNU version and the POSIX version.

The GNU version can be found in string.h after you include #define _GNU_SOURCE:

    #define _GNU_SOURCE

    #include 

The GNU version uses const and does not modify the argument.

    char * basename (const char *path)

This function is overridden by the XPG (POSIX) version if libgen.h is included.

    char * basename (char *path)

This function may modify the argument by removing trailing '/' bytes. The result may be different from the GNU version in this case:

    basename("foo/bar/")

will return the string "bar" if you use the XPG version and an empty string if you use the GNU version.

References:

basename (3) - Linux Man Pages

Function: char * basename (const char *filename), Finding Tokens in a String.