How do I take a directory name from a given dir?

[Merrigan]

Hi,

I am trying to write a script to backup all my company's server configs
weekly. The script will run in a cronjob, on whatever I set it.

The issue I am currently having isto "extract" the directory name from
a given directory string. For example: from the string
"/home/testuser/projects/" I need to extract the "projects" part. The
problem is that the directory names that needs to be used will never be
the same lenght, so as far as my (very limited) knowledge stretches,
slicing and indicing is out of the question.

Can anybody help me, or give me an idea of what I should look at,
seeing as I'm seriously stuck. I only started coding at the beginnig of
the year, and was never interested before that, so my knowlege is
basically non-existent.

Thanks in advance for the help :)