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Extract filename and extension in Bash

I want to get the filename (without extension) and the extension separately.

The best solution I found so far is:

NAME=`echo "$FILE" | cut -d'.' -f1`
EXTENSION=`echo "$FILE" | cut -d'.' -f2`

This is wrong because it doesn't work if the file name contains multiple . characters. If, let's say, I have a.b.js, it will consider a and b.js, instead of a.b and js.

It can be easily done in Python with

file, ext = os.path.splitext(path)

but I'd prefer not to fire up a Python interpreter just for this, if possible.

Any better ideas?

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95

Check out gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/… for the full feature set.

D.Shawley
– D.Shawley

2009-06-08 14:08:51 +00:00
Commented Jun 8, 2009 at 14:08
27

Add some quotes to "$fullfile", or you'll risk breaking the filename.

lhunath
– lhunath

2009-06-08 14:34:48 +00:00
Commented Jun 8, 2009 at 14:34
54

Heck, you could even write filename="${fullfile##*/}" and avoid calling an extra basename

ephemient
– ephemient

2009-06-09 17:52:24 +00:00
Commented Jun 9, 2009 at 17:52
58

This "solution" does not work if the file does not have an extension -- instead, the whole file name is output, which is quite bad considering that files without extensions are omnipresent.

nccc
– nccc

2012-07-01 03:42:00 +00:00
Commented Jul 1, 2012 at 3:42
53

Fix for dealing with file names without extension: extension=$([[ "$filename" = *.* ]] && echo ".${filename##*.}" || echo ''). Note that if an extension is present, it will be returned including the initial ., e.g., .txt.

mklement0
– mklement0

2012-09-07 14:41:40 +00:00
Commented Sep 7, 2012 at 14:41

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Extract filename and extension in Bash

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