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Asked: 2026-05-22T17:29:39+00:00

In Bash, if VAR=/home/me/mydir/file.c , how do I get /home/me/mydir ?

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In Bash, if VAR="/home/me/mydir/file.c", how do I get "/home/me/mydir"?

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  1. Editorial Team

    dirname and basename are the tools you’re looking for for extracting path components:

    $ VAR='/home/pax/file.c'
$ DIR="$(dirname "${VAR}")" ; FILE="$(basename "${VAR}")"
$ echo "[${DIR}] [${FILE}]"
[/home/pax] [file.c]

    They’re not internal bash commands but they are part of the POSIX standard – see dirname and basename. Hence, they’re probably available on, or can be obtained for, most platforms that are capable of running bash.

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