How to strip paths from file names on standard input

Question

How could I strip the paths from a list of file names on standard input? I basically need something like basename that iterates over standard input.

Answer 1

while read path; do basename "$path" ; done

Simple loop.

Answer 2

Try xargs basename -a. It'll run faster than a simple loop as basename won't be run for each filename.

$ printf "%s\n" foo/bar bar/baz | xargs basename -a
bar
baz

Note that the above won't correctly handle filenames with spaces. You'll want to use the -0 option to xargs and ensure the input is NUL terminated.

$ printf "%s\0" 'foo/foo bar' bar/baz | xargs -0 basename -a
foo bar
baz

Answer 3

According to this answer

If your filename is in the form of a variable such as $fullpathname

nopathfile="${fullpathname##*/}"

It's in the bash manpage at the section called "Parameter Expansion"