It is a simple issue, really, but cannot seem to find an answer.

I'd like to output the parent directory name of a file, e.g.;
# parentdir /home/foo/bar/filename
bar

That's all. Seems it can be done, but only with a script--not with an existing common command, like find or ls.

-sc

easy peasy:

ls /var/film/..

ok. and once i read the question correctly:

ls `dirname /var/film/blah`

Maybe I'm missing something but do you not just want the name of the parent directory and not to list the files within it? If so then try:
pwd | awk -F"/" {'print $(NF-1)'}

thanks for the help, but that returns the dir listing of blah's parent.

I've got three files in /home/foo/bar:
file1
file2
file3

I'd like a command on, for example, /home/foo/bar/file1 that will return its parent directory without all the lead directories, just:
bar

Thanks again
-sc

chris@kermit chris $ basename `dirname /var/film/films/the_core.avi`
films

Thanks david_ross and acid_kewpie, both will do the job--although the basename `dirname` option is a little more straight forward, and works whether you feed it a directory with/without trailer

Now just to get it to work within an -exec option on find.

# find /home -user deleteduser -exec chown basename 'dirname {}` {} \;

Don't be concerned too much about what it does, it's appropriate for what I'm trying to do. (find files owned by a deleted user and assign ownership to a user with a name equal to basename `dirname`--the basename `dirname` user will exist).

-sc