The dirname command is a built-in shell command that returns the directory portion of a path. The dirname utility deletes the filename portion, beginning with the last slash ‘/’ character to the end of string. You can use it for:

• Extracting the directory path from a file path.
• Removing the filename from a path.
• Generating directory paths for temporary files.

Syntax

The dirname command takes a single argument, which is the path to the file or directory whose directory path you want to extract. The command returns the directory path, minus the filename.

dirname <path>

Examples

Extract the directory path from a file path:

dirname /home/user/myfile.txt

Output: /home/user

Create a temp file and return its directory path:

dirname $(mktemp).tmp)

Output: /var/folders/fk/_z2xh0951lvc_d88hvq59__h0000gn/T

With gencmd

gencmd how do I get the dir path from path

• dirname [path]