File::Basename (Programming Perl)

32.18. File::Basename

use File::Basename;

$fullname = "/usr/local/src/perl-5.6.1.tar.gz";

$file = basename($fullname);
# file="perl-5.6.1.tar.gz"

$dir = dirname($fullname);
# dir="/usr/local/src"


($file,$dir,$ext) = fileparse($fullname, qr/\..*/);
# dir="/usr/local/src/" file="perl-5" ext=".6.1.tar.gz"

($file,$dir,$ext) = fileparse($fullname, qr/\.[^.]*/);
# dir="/usr/local/src/" file="perl-5.6.1.tar" ext=".gz"

($file,$dir,$ext) = fileparse($fullname, qr/\.\D.*/);
# dir="/usr/local/src/" file="perl-5.6.1" ext=".tar.gz"

($file,$dir,$bak) = fileparse("/tmp/file.bak",
                        qr/~+$/, qr/\.(bak|orig|save)/)
# dir="/tmp/" file="file" ext=".bak"

($file,$dir,$bak) = fileparse("/tmp/file~",
                        qr/~+$/, qr/\.(bak|orig|save)/)
# dir="/tmp/" file="file" ext="~"

The File::Basename module provides functions to parse pathnames into their individual components. The dirname function pulls out the directory portion and basename the nondirectory portion. The more elaborate fileparse function picks out the full pathname into the directory name, the filename, and the suffix; you must supply a list of regular expressions describing the suffixes that interest you. The examples above illustrate how choice of suffix patterns affects the result. By default, these functions parse pathnames according to the native conventions of your current platform. The fileparse_set_fstype function selects a different platform's parsing rules, such as fileparse_set_fstype("VMS") to parse names using VMS rules, even when running on non-VMS systems.