Hi Here this a strange behaviour using 'dirname' with joker filename: >ll /tmp/*.out ls: /tmp/*.out: No such file or directory >dirname /tmp/*.out /tmp That's OK. But if several files match the argument given : >ll /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL -rw-r--r-- 1 qualiac qualiac 20715696 Sep 6 02:15 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/M399111H.HL -rw-r--r-- 1 qualiac qualiac 1181326 Sep 6 02:16 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/T399111H.HL -rw-r--r-- 1 qualiac qualiac 225012 Sep 6 02:15 /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/T399211H.HL >dirname /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL dirname: too many arguments Try `dirname --help' for more information. That's bad. If I try: >dirname '/home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission/*.HL' /home/qualiac/mdl/scriptsJDM/QuaToCov/emission That's OK. Could 'dirname' process only its first parameter ? Thanks. ---------------------------------------------- UNIX VERSION: ---------------------------------------------- >uname -a Linux jdm-qualiac-srv-trv.midilibre.com 2.6.9-100.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Feb 1 12:04:42 EST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux >uname -r 2.6.9-100.ELsmp >cat /etc/issue Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 9) Kernel \r on an \m