Take the last part of the folder path in shell

Question

If you type pwd you get something like:

/home/username/Desctop/myfolder/

How to take the last part? The myfolder path.

This must be simple but I couldn't find easy solution in shell. I know how to take care of this in java but not in shell.

thanks

Answer 1

You can use basename for that, provided the last part is indeed a directory component (not a file):

$ basename /home/username/Desctop/myfolder/
myfolder

Answer 2

Using basename $(pwd) are two useless and expensive forks.

echo ${PWD##*/}

should do the trick completely in the shell without expensive forks (snag: for the root directory this is the empty string).

Answer 3

function basename {
    shopt -s extglob
    __=${1%%+(/)}
    [[ -z $__ ]] && __=/ || __=${__##*/}
}

basename "$PWD"
echo "$__"

Answer 4

To extract the last part of a path, try using basename...

basename $(pwd);

Answer 5

You're right--it's a quick command:

basename "$PWD"

Answer 6

In Linux, there are a pair of commands, dirname and basename. dirname extracts all but the last part of a path, and basename extracts just the last part of a path.

In this case, using basename will do what you want:

basename $(pwd)