CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashif-statementfind
Village
Village

Reputation: 24423

What is the simplest way to check if a character is found within a variable in BASH?

I need to check if a variable contains a particular character, for use in an if-conditional in BASH, e.g.:

if [ "①" is in "$numbers" ]
then
    echo "Found."
else
    echo "Not found."
fi

If $numbers is "These are some numbers 1232", it returns "Not found.", but if "①" is found anywhere in the line, it returns "Found."

I have been using $numbers | grep -c ①, then checking if the output is greater than "0", but it seems there must be a simpler solution.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 74

Answers (3)

choroba
choroba

Reputation: 241988

Right hand side of a comparison can be a pattern:

if [[ $numbers = *①* ]] ; then

Upvotes: 3

John1024
John1024

Reputation: 113924

For a posix solution, use a case statement in place of an if statement:

numbers="①"
case "$numbers" in
    *①*)  echo "Found it." ;;
    *)   echo "Not here."  ;;
esac

This solution will work under dash which is the default shell (/bin/sh) for scripts under Debian-influenced distributions.

Upvotes: 2

rojs
rojs

Reputation: 648

As long as it's bash and doesn't need to be posix:

if [[ "$numbers" =~ ① ]]; then
  echo "Found"
fi

Upvotes: 3

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