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bashshellcut
Rob Bednark
Rob Bednark

Reputation: 28222

How do I cut everything on each line starting with a multi-character string in bash?

How do I cut everything starting with a given multi-character string using a common shell command?

e.g., given:

foo+=bar

I want:

foo

i.e., cut everything starting with +=

cut doesn't work because it only takes a single-character delimiter, not a multi-character string:

$ echo 'foo+=bar' | cut -d '+=' -f 1
cut: bad delimiter

If I can't use cut, I would consider using perl instead, or if there's another shell command that is more commonly installed.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1047

Answers (2)

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 786291

cut only allows single character delimiter.

You may use bash string manipulation:

s='foo+=bar'
echo "${s%%+=*}"

foo

or use more powerful awk:

awk -F '\\+=' '{print $1}' <<< "$s"
foo

'\\+=' is a regex that matches + followed by = character.

Upvotes: 3

Pavan
Pavan

Reputation: 662

You can use 'sed' command to do this:

string='foo+=bar'
echo ${string} | sed 's/+=.*//g'
foo

or if you're using Bash shell, then use the below parameter expansion (recommended) since it doesn't create unnecessary pipeline and another sed process and so is efficient:

echo ${string%%\+\=*}

or

echo ${string%%[+][=]*}

Upvotes: 1

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