shell: how to take part of the line...

[graudeejs]

Example:
ThisIsMyDumbTextLine

How can i take part of text out of it....? (can't really express my self)
1) Lets say i want to get last/first 5 characters of text...
2) 3 characters starting from 4th character.....


In basic language there is function mid$(string$, offest%, lenght%)
what would be similar function in sh?

Also how can i determine how long is text line? ( len(string$) in basic)

[J65nko]

See the expr(1) man page

$ text=ThisIsMyDumbTextLine
$ expr $text : '\(.....\)'
ThisI

$ expr $text : '.*\(.....\)$'
tLine

$ expr $text : '.*'
20

The Midstring function:

$ text='1234567890'
$ expr $text : '.\{4\}\(.\{5\}\)' 
56789.

[vermaden]

1) Lets say i want to get last/first 5 characters of text...
2) 3 characters starting from 4th character.....

echo text | cut -c4-7

In basic language there is function mid$(string$, offest%, lenght%)

awk

[anomie]

This is one of my favorite (g)awk references: http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/man...ode/index.html

See String Manipulation Functions.

[anemos]

echo texttodisplay | awk  '{print substr($1,1,1)}'

[graudeejs]

Thanks to all of you....

[Carpetsmoker]

You can also use head and tail with the -c switch.

[drl]

Hi.

Some shells have this built-in for variables:

#!/bin/bash -

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate bash substring expansion.

echo
echo "(Versions displayed with local utility \"version\")"
version >/dev/null 2>&1 && version "=o" $(_eat $0 $1)
set -o nounset

echo
echo " Results:"
t="0123456789abcdefghij"

echo
echo $t
echo

i=0
echo " First 5 ${t:$i:5}"
echo
i=-5
echo " Last  5 ${t:$i:5}"
echo
i=3
echo " 3 from 4 ${t:$i:3}"

exit 0

Producing:

% ./s1

(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
Linux 2.6.11-x1
GNU bash 2.05b.0

 Results:

0123456789abcdefghij

 First 5 01234

 Last  5 fghij

 3 from 4 345

cheers, drl

[TerryP]

A thousand and one different ways, one thing you might consider is, how easy can you remember it; without having to pick apart the script later when you haven't looked at it in the last 9 months.