CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshell
shraddha agrawal
shraddha agrawal

Reputation: 155

Substring from a string in bash using scripting language

How can we fetch a substring from a string in bash using scripting language?

Example:

fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"

The substring I want is everything before ".URL" in the full string.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 89

Answers (6)

mklement0
mklement0

Reputation: 440677

To offer yet another alternative: Bash's regular-expression matching operator, =~:

fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"
echo "$([[ $fullstring =~ ^(.*)'.URL' ]] && echo "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}")"

Note how the (one and only) capture group ((.*)) is reported through element 1 of the special "${BASH_REMATCH[@]}" array variable.

While in this case l3x's parameter expansion solution is simpler, =~ generally offers more flexibility.

awk offers an easy solution as well:

echo "$(awk -F'\\.URL' '{ print $1 }' <<<"$fullstring")"

Upvotes: 0

shraddha agrawal
shraddha agrawal

Reputation: 155

fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"
menuID=`echo $fullstring | cut -f 1 -d '.'`

here I used dot as a separator this works in .sh files

Upvotes: 0

heemayl
heemayl

Reputation: 42147

Parameter Expansion is the way to go.

If you are interested in a simple grep:

% fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"

% grep -o '^[^.]*' <<<"$fullstring"
mnuLOCNMOD

Upvotes: 0

P.P
P.P

Reputation: 121427

With Parameter Expansion, you can do:

fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"
echo ${fullstring%\.URL*}

prints:

mnuLOCNMOD

Upvotes: 5

Maroun
Maroun

Reputation: 96016

You can use grep:

echo "mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javas" | grep -oP '\w+(?=\.URL)'

and assign the result to a string. I used a positive lookahead (?=regex) because it's a zero length assertion, meaning that it'll be matched but won't be displayed.

Run grep --help to find out what o and P flags stand for.

Upvotes: 0

riteshtch
riteshtch

Reputation: 8769

$ fullstring="mnuLOCNMOD.URL = javascript:parent.doC...something"
$ sed -r 's/^(.*)\.URL.*$/\1/g' <<< "$fullstring"
mnuLOCNMOD
$

Upvotes: 1

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