.\"
.TH DIRNAME 3 2000-12-14 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
-dirname, basename \- Parse pathname components
+dirname, basename \- parse pathname components
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <libgen.h>
.BR basename ()
may modify the contents of
.IR path ,
-so a copy should be passed when calling one of these functions.
-(Because either function may return a pointer to some part of
-.IR path ,
-the copy should not be freed until the pointer returned by
-the function is no longer required.)
-Furthermore,
-.BR dirname ()
-and
-.BR basename ()
-may return pointers to statically allocated memory
+so it may be desirable to pass a copy when calling one of
+these functions.
+.PP
+These functions may return pointers to statically allocated memory
which may be overwritten by subsequent calls.
+Alternatively, they may return a pointer to some part of
+.IR path ,
+so that the string referred to by
+.I path
+should not be modified or freed until the pointer returned by
+the function is no longer required.
.PP
The following list of examples (taken from SUSv2)
shows the strings returned by