Three different methods ; permanganate-periodate oxidation, periodate oxidation and trimethylsilylation, for gas-liquid chromatography of sphingosine bases were compared to one another, using authentic dihydrosphingosine as well as bases of cerebroside isolated from pig brain and sphingolipids from yeast powder, with the data on the occurrences of shorter chain homologs of sphingosine bases. The trimethylsilylation method was most suitable for the qualitative determination and identification of individual sphingosine base. This method was also available for the quantitative determination of sphingosine base composition. The periodate method was most suitable for the quantitative determination of sphingosine base composition, except that some uncertainties such as C-15 saturated aldehyde could be derived from either C17-dihydrosphingosine or C18-phytosphingosine, remain to be solved by other methods such as Trimethylsilylation method or thin-layer chromatography etc. The permanganate-periodate method was less suitable for the determination of sphingosine base composition for higher appearance of some oxidation products as well as uncertainties due to same acids could be derived from different parent bases by this method than by periodate method. But it is still useful for the exact determination of the double bond position and helps the identification of the bases with other methods. C16-sphingosine, C16-dihydrosphingosine and probably C17-sphingosine occured at low level in pig brain cerebroside. C18-dihydrosphingosine was predominant base in yeast sphingolipids but the occurrences of C18-phytosphingosine and C20-dihydrosphingosine were also confirmed.