Bash get filename from given path on Linux or Unix

Bash get filename from given path

The basename command strip directory and suffix from filenames. The syntax is pretty simple:basename /path/to/filebasename /path/to/file suffix

Examples

Let us see how to extract a filename from given file such as /bin/ls. Type the following basename command:basename /bin/lsYou can pass multiple arguments using the -a option as follows:basename -a /bin/date /sbin/useradd /nas04/nfs/nixcraft/data.tar.gzStore outputs in a shell variable, run:

out="$(basename /data/backup-file.tar.gz)" echo "Filename is $out"

How to remove extesnion from filenames

Remove .gz from backups.tar.gz file and get backups.tar only:basename /backups/14-nov-2019/backups.tar.gz .gzOR

basename -s .gz /backups/14-nov-2019/backups.tar.gz # # Bash get filename from path and store in $my_name variable  # my_name="$(basename -s .gz /backups/14-nov-2019/backups.tar.gz)" echo "Filename without .gz extension : $my_name"

Extract filename and extension in Bash

From the bash man page:

The ‘$’ character introduces parameter expansion, command substitution, or arithmetic expansion. The parameter name or symbol to be expanded may be enclosed in braces, which are optional but serve to protect the variable to be expanded from characters immediately following it which could be interpreted as part of the name. When braces are used, the matching ending brace is the first ‘}’ not escaped by a backslash or within a quoted string, and not within an embedded arithmetic expansion, command substitution, or parameter expansion. The basic form of parameter expansion is ${parameter}. The value of parameter is substituted.

How to extract filename and extension in bash shell script

For instance, define a shell variable named $input. Let us create a shell script named test.sh:

#!/bin/bash input="/home/vivek/work/config.ini" # extract config.ini file_name="${input##*/}" # get .ini  file_extension="${file_name##*.}" # get config  file="${file_name%.*}" # print it echo "Full input file : $input" echo "Filename only : $file_name" echo "File extension only: $file_extension" echo "First part of filename only: $file"

Execute the shell script in Linux, run:chmod +x test.sh./test.shbash test.sh

Conclusion

You learned how to get filename and extension from given path. See “How To Use Bash Parameter Substitution Like A Pro” for more info.