Macintosh Terminal Pocket Guide

Name

basename — stdin  stdout  - file  -- opt  --help  --version

Synopsis

basename path [suffix]

The basename command, given a file path, prints the final component in the path:

➜ basename /Users/smith/finances/money.txt
money.txt

If you provide an optional suffix, it gets stripped from the result:

➜ basename /Users/smith/finances/money.txt .txt
money

basename doesn’t care if the file path exists: it just extracts the final filename.