How can I remove all text after a character, in this case a colon (":"), in bash? Can I remove the colon, too? I have no idea how to.
In Bash (and ksh, zsh, dash, etc.), you can use parameter expansion with % which will remove characters from the end of the string or # which will remove characters from the beginning of the string. If you use a single one of those characters, the smallest matching string will be removed. If you double the character, the longest will be removed.
$ a='hello:world'
$ b=${a%:*}
$ echo "$b"
hello
$ a='hello:world:of:tomorrow'
$ echo "${a%:*}"
hello:world:of
$ echo "${a%%:*}"
hello
$ echo "${a#*:}"
world:of:tomorrow
$ echo "${a##*:}"
tomorrow
An example might have been useful, but if I understood you correctly, this would work:
echo "Hello: world" | cut -f1 -d":"
This will convert Hello: world into Hello.
$ echo 'hello:world:again' |sed 's/:.*//'
hello
I know some solutions:
# Our mock data:
A=user:mail:password
With awk and pipe:
$ echo $A | awk -v FS=':' '{print $1}'
user
Via bash variables:
$ echo ${A%%:*}
user
With pipe and sed:
$ echo $A | sed 's#:.*##g'
user
With pipe and grep:
$ echo $A | egrep -o '^[^:]+'
user
With pipe and cut:
$ echo $A | cut -f1 -d\:
user
egrep -o '^[^:]*:'
trim off everything after the last instance of ":"
grep -o '^.*:' fileListingPathsAndFiles.txt
and if you wanted to drop that last ":"
grep -o '^.*:' file.txt | sed 's/:$//'
#kp123: you'd want to replace : with / (where the sed colon should be \/)
Let's say you have a path with a file in this format:
/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file
Now you only want the path which includes four "/". Type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-4 -d"/"
and your output will be
/dirA/dirB/dirC
The advantage of using cut is that you can also cut out the uppest directory as well as the file (in this example), so if you type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-3 -d"/"
your output would be
/dirA/dirB
Though you can do the same from the other side of the string, it would not make that much sense in this case as typing
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f2-4 -d"/"
results in
dirA/dirB/dirC
In some other cases the last case might also be helpful. Mind that there is no "/" at the beginning of the last output.
Related
How can I remove all text after a character, in this case a colon (":"), in bash? Can I remove the colon, too? I have no idea how to.
In Bash (and ksh, zsh, dash, etc.), you can use parameter expansion with % which will remove characters from the end of the string or # which will remove characters from the beginning of the string. If you use a single one of those characters, the smallest matching string will be removed. If you double the character, the longest will be removed.
$ a='hello:world'
$ b=${a%:*}
$ echo "$b"
hello
$ a='hello:world:of:tomorrow'
$ echo "${a%:*}"
hello:world:of
$ echo "${a%%:*}"
hello
$ echo "${a#*:}"
world:of:tomorrow
$ echo "${a##*:}"
tomorrow
An example might have been useful, but if I understood you correctly, this would work:
echo "Hello: world" | cut -f1 -d":"
This will convert Hello: world into Hello.
$ echo 'hello:world:again' |sed 's/:.*//'
hello
I know some solutions:
# Our mock data:
A=user:mail:password
With awk and pipe:
$ echo $A | awk -v FS=':' '{print $1}'
user
Via bash variables:
$ echo ${A%%:*}
user
With pipe and sed:
$ echo $A | sed 's#:.*##g'
user
With pipe and grep:
$ echo $A | egrep -o '^[^:]+'
user
With pipe and cut:
$ echo $A | cut -f1 -d\:
user
egrep -o '^[^:]*:'
trim off everything after the last instance of ":"
grep -o '^.*:' fileListingPathsAndFiles.txt
and if you wanted to drop that last ":"
grep -o '^.*:' file.txt | sed 's/:$//'
#kp123: you'd want to replace : with / (where the sed colon should be \/)
Let's say you have a path with a file in this format:
/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file
Now you only want the path which includes four "/". Type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-4 -d"/"
and your output will be
/dirA/dirB/dirC
The advantage of using cut is that you can also cut out the uppest directory as well as the file (in this example), so if you type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-3 -d"/"
your output would be
/dirA/dirB
Though you can do the same from the other side of the string, it would not make that much sense in this case as typing
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f2-4 -d"/"
results in
dirA/dirB/dirC
In some other cases the last case might also be helpful. Mind that there is no "/" at the beginning of the last output.
How can I remove all text after a character, in this case a colon (":"), in bash? Can I remove the colon, too? I have no idea how to.
In Bash (and ksh, zsh, dash, etc.), you can use parameter expansion with % which will remove characters from the end of the string or # which will remove characters from the beginning of the string. If you use a single one of those characters, the smallest matching string will be removed. If you double the character, the longest will be removed.
$ a='hello:world'
$ b=${a%:*}
$ echo "$b"
hello
$ a='hello:world:of:tomorrow'
$ echo "${a%:*}"
hello:world:of
$ echo "${a%%:*}"
hello
$ echo "${a#*:}"
world:of:tomorrow
$ echo "${a##*:}"
tomorrow
An example might have been useful, but if I understood you correctly, this would work:
echo "Hello: world" | cut -f1 -d":"
This will convert Hello: world into Hello.
$ echo 'hello:world:again' |sed 's/:.*//'
hello
I know some solutions:
# Our mock data:
A=user:mail:password
With awk and pipe:
$ echo $A | awk -v FS=':' '{print $1}'
user
Via bash variables:
$ echo ${A%%:*}
user
With pipe and sed:
$ echo $A | sed 's#:.*##g'
user
With pipe and grep:
$ echo $A | egrep -o '^[^:]+'
user
With pipe and cut:
$ echo $A | cut -f1 -d\:
user
egrep -o '^[^:]*:'
trim off everything after the last instance of ":"
grep -o '^.*:' fileListingPathsAndFiles.txt
and if you wanted to drop that last ":"
grep -o '^.*:' file.txt | sed 's/:$//'
#kp123: you'd want to replace : with / (where the sed colon should be \/)
Let's say you have a path with a file in this format:
/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file
Now you only want the path which includes four "/". Type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-4 -d"/"
and your output will be
/dirA/dirB/dirC
The advantage of using cut is that you can also cut out the uppest directory as well as the file (in this example), so if you type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-3 -d"/"
your output would be
/dirA/dirB
Though you can do the same from the other side of the string, it would not make that much sense in this case as typing
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f2-4 -d"/"
results in
dirA/dirB/dirC
In some other cases the last case might also be helpful. Mind that there is no "/" at the beginning of the last output.
I am working on shell script and new to it. I want to extract the string between double $$ characters, for example:
input:
$$extractabc$$
output
extractabc
I used grep and sed but not working out. Any suggestions are welcome!
You could do
awk -F"$" '{print $3}' file.txt
assuming the file contained input:$$extractabc$$ output:extractabc. awk splits your data into pieces using $ as a delimiter. First item will be input:, next will be empty, next will be extractabc.
You could use sed like so to get the same info.
sed -e 's/.*$$\(.*\)$$.*/\1/' file.txt
sed looks for information between $$s and outputs that. The goal is to type something like this .*$$(.*)$$.*. It's greedy but just stay with me.
looks for .* - i.e. any character zero or more times before $$
then the string should have $$
after $$ there'll be any character zero or more times
then the string should have another $$
and some more characters to follow
between the 2 $$ is (.*). String found between $$s is given a placeholder \1
sed finds such information and publishes it
Using grep PCRE (where available) and look-around:
$ echo '$$extractabc$$' | grep -oP "(?<=\\$\\$).*(?=\\$\\$)"
extractabc
echo '$$extractabc$$' | awk '{gsub(/\$\$/,"")}1'
extractabc
Here is an other variation:
echo "$$extractabc$$" | awk -F"$$" 'NF==3 {print $2}'
It does test of there are two set of $$ and only then prints whats between $$
Does also work for input like blabla$$some_data$$moreblabla
How about remove all the $ in the input?
$ echo '$$extractabc$$' | sed 's/\$//g'
extractabc
Same with tr
$ echo '$$extractabc$$' | tr -d '$'
extractabc
I know about the xargs utility, which allows me to convert lines into multiple arguments, like this:
echo -e "a\nb\nc\n" | xargs
Results in:
a b c
But I want to get:
a:b:c
The character : is used for an example. I want to be able to insert any separator between lines to get a single argument. How can I do it?
If you have a file with multiple lines than you want to change to a single argument changing the NEWLINES by a single character, the paste command is what you need:
$ echo -en "a\nb\nc\n" | paste -s -d ":"
a:b:c
Then, your command becomes:
your_command "$(paste -s -d ":" your_file)"
EDIT:
If you want to insert more than a single character as a separator, you could use sed before paste:
your_command "$(sed -e '2,$s/^/<you_separator>/' your_file | paste -s -d "")"
Or use a single more complicated sed:
your_command "$(sed -n -e '1h;2,$H;${x;s/\n/<you_separator>/gp}' your_file)"
The example you gave is not working for me. You would need:
echo -e "a\nb\nc\n" | xargs
to get a b c.
Coming back to your need, you could do this:
echo "a b c" | awk 'OFS=":" {print $1, $2, $3}'
it will change the separator from space to : or whatever you want it to be.
You can also use sed:
echo "a b c" | sed -e 's/ /:/g
that will output a:b:c.
After all these data processing, you can use xargs to perform the command you want to. Just | xargs and do whatever you want.
Hope it helps.
You can join the lines using xargs and then replace the space(' ' ) using sed.
echo -e "a\nb\nc"|xargs| sed -e 's/ /:/g'
will result in
a:b:c
obviously you can use this output as argument for other command using another xargs.
echo -e "a\nb\nc"|xargs| sed -e 's/ /:/g'|xargs
How can I remove all text after a character, in this case a colon (":"), in bash? Can I remove the colon, too? I have no idea how to.
In Bash (and ksh, zsh, dash, etc.), you can use parameter expansion with % which will remove characters from the end of the string or # which will remove characters from the beginning of the string. If you use a single one of those characters, the smallest matching string will be removed. If you double the character, the longest will be removed.
$ a='hello:world'
$ b=${a%:*}
$ echo "$b"
hello
$ a='hello:world:of:tomorrow'
$ echo "${a%:*}"
hello:world:of
$ echo "${a%%:*}"
hello
$ echo "${a#*:}"
world:of:tomorrow
$ echo "${a##*:}"
tomorrow
An example might have been useful, but if I understood you correctly, this would work:
echo "Hello: world" | cut -f1 -d":"
This will convert Hello: world into Hello.
$ echo 'hello:world:again' |sed 's/:.*//'
hello
I know some solutions:
# Our mock data:
A=user:mail:password
With awk and pipe:
$ echo $A | awk -v FS=':' '{print $1}'
user
Via bash variables:
$ echo ${A%%:*}
user
With pipe and sed:
$ echo $A | sed 's#:.*##g'
user
With pipe and grep:
$ echo $A | egrep -o '^[^:]+'
user
With pipe and cut:
$ echo $A | cut -f1 -d\:
user
egrep -o '^[^:]*:'
trim off everything after the last instance of ":"
grep -o '^.*:' fileListingPathsAndFiles.txt
and if you wanted to drop that last ":"
grep -o '^.*:' file.txt | sed 's/:$//'
#kp123: you'd want to replace : with / (where the sed colon should be \/)
Let's say you have a path with a file in this format:
/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file
Now you only want the path which includes four "/". Type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-4 -d"/"
and your output will be
/dirA/dirB/dirC
The advantage of using cut is that you can also cut out the uppest directory as well as the file (in this example), so if you type
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f1-3 -d"/"
your output would be
/dirA/dirB
Though you can do the same from the other side of the string, it would not make that much sense in this case as typing
$ echo "/dirA/dirB/dirC/filename.file" | cut -f2-4 -d"/"
results in
dirA/dirB/dirC
In some other cases the last case might also be helpful. Mind that there is no "/" at the beginning of the last output.