CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexbash
scottysseus
scottysseus

Reputation: 2010

bash: using =~ with regex containing #

Alright folks. I am writing a bash script and would like compare a string against a regular expression containing a # using the =~ operator.

Here is what I have so far:

if [[ ${line} =~ \s*\# ]]; then
     #do things
fi

As you can see, I am attempting to escape the # with a \, which is supposed to be possible according to this article. This is really confounding to me, however. My syntax highlighter is still highlighting the text following the # as if it were a comment.

Is my syntax highlighter incorrect? Will the escape of the # interfere with the parsing of the regex? Is there some way I can use quotes to avoid this issue?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 169

Answers (1)

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 784998

You can do:

re='\s*#'

if [[ $line =~ $re ]]; then
     #do things
fi

Upvotes: 5

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