Is there a way to format the width of a substring within a string in a bash/sh script? - bash

I have to format the width of a substring within a string using a bash script, but without using tokens or loops. A single character between two colons should be prepended by a 0 in order to match the standard width of 2 for each field.
For e.g
from:
6:0:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:0:c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:0:1:3
to
06:00:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:00:0c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:00:01:03
How can I do this?

sed -r 's/\<([0-9a-f])\>/0\1/g'
Search and replace with a regex. Use \< and \> to match word boundaries so [0-9a-f] only matches single digits.
$ sed -r 's/\<([0-9a-f])\>/0\1/g' <<< "6:0:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:0:c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:0:1:3"
06:00:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:00:0c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:00:01:03

awk -F: -v OFS=: '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) if(length($i)==1)gsub($i,"0&",$i)}1' file
Output:
06:00:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:00:0c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:00:01:03
This will divide the whole line into fields separated by : , if the length of any of the field is == 1. then it will replace that field with 0field.

Bash solution:
IFS=:; for i in $string; do echo -n 0$i: | tail -c 3; done

With
str="06:00:36:35:30:30:72:6c:73:00:0c:52:4c:30:31:30:31:30:30:30:31:36:39:00:01:03"
you can add a '0' to all tokens and remove those that are unwanted:
sed -r 's/0([0-9a-f]{2})/\1/g' <<< "0${str//:/:0}"
That doesn't feel right, making errors and repairing them.
A better alternative is
echo $(IFS=:; printf "%2s:" ${str} | tr " " "0")

Related

Double quotes containing variable not working in sed [duplicate]

In my bash script I have an external (received from user) string, which I should use in sed pattern.
REPLACE="<funny characters here>"
sed "s/KEYWORD/$REPLACE/g"
How can I escape the $REPLACE string so it would be safely accepted by sed as a literal replacement?
NOTE: The KEYWORD is a dumb substring with no matches etc. It is not supplied by user.
Warning: This does not consider newlines. For a more in-depth answer, see this SO-question instead. (Thanks, Ed Morton & Niklas Peter)
Note that escaping everything is a bad idea. Sed needs many characters to be escaped to get their special meaning. For example, if you escape a digit in the replacement string, it will turn in to a backreference.
As Ben Blank said, there are only three characters that need to be escaped in the replacement string (escapes themselves, forward slash for end of statement and & for replace all):
ESCAPED_REPLACE=$(printf '%s\n' "$REPLACE" | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g')
# Now you can use ESCAPED_REPLACE in the original sed statement
sed "s/KEYWORD/$ESCAPED_REPLACE/g"
If you ever need to escape the KEYWORD string, the following is the one you need:
sed -e 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g'
And can be used by:
KEYWORD="The Keyword You Need";
ESCAPED_KEYWORD=$(printf '%s\n' "$KEYWORD" | sed -e 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g');
# Now you can use it inside the original sed statement to replace text
sed "s/$ESCAPED_KEYWORD/$ESCAPED_REPLACE/g"
Remember, if you use a character other than / as delimiter, you need replace the slash in the expressions above wih the character you are using. See PeterJCLaw's comment for explanation.
Edited: Due to some corner cases previously not accounted for, the commands above have changed several times. Check the edit history for details.
The sed command allows you to use other characters instead of / as separator:
sed 's#"http://www\.fubar\.com"#URL_FUBAR#g'
The double quotes are not a problem.
The only three literal characters which are treated specially in the replace clause are / (to close the clause), \ (to escape characters, backreference, &c.), and & (to include the match in the replacement). Therefore, all you need to do is escape those three characters:
sed "s/KEYWORD/$(echo $REPLACE | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g; s/\//\\\//g; s/&/\\\&/g')/g"
Example:
$ export REPLACE="'\"|\\/><&!"
$ echo fooKEYWORDbar | sed "s/KEYWORD/$(echo $REPLACE | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g; s/\//\\\//g; s/&/\\\&/g')/g"
foo'"|\/><&!bar
Based on Pianosaurus's regular expressions, I made a bash function that escapes both keyword and replacement.
function sedeasy {
sed -i "s/$(echo $1 | sed -e 's/\([[\/.*]\|\]\)/\\&/g')/$(echo $2 | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g')/g" $3
}
Here's how you use it:
sedeasy "include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*" "include /apps/*/conf/nginx.conf" /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
It's a bit late to respond... but there IS a much simpler way to do this. Just change the delimiter (i.e., the character that separates fields). So, instead of s/foo/bar/ you write s|bar|foo.
And, here's the easy way to do this:
sed 's|/\*!50017 DEFINER=`snafu`#`localhost`\*/||g'
The resulting output is devoid of that nasty DEFINER clause.
It turns out you're asking the wrong question. I also asked the wrong question. The reason it's wrong is the beginning of the first sentence: "In my bash script...".
I had the same question & made the same mistake. If you're using bash, you don't need to use sed to do string replacements (and it's much cleaner to use the replace feature built into bash).
Instead of something like, for example:
function escape-all-funny-characters() { UNKNOWN_CODE_THAT_ANSWERS_THE_QUESTION_YOU_ASKED; }
INPUT='some long string with KEYWORD that need replacing KEYWORD.'
A="$(escape-all-funny-characters 'KEYWORD')"
B="$(escape-all-funny-characters '<funny characters here>')"
OUTPUT="$(sed "s/$A/$B/g" <<<"$INPUT")"
you can use bash features exclusively:
INPUT='some long string with KEYWORD that need replacing KEYWORD.'
A='KEYWORD'
B='<funny characters here>'
OUTPUT="${INPUT//"$A"/"$B"}"
Use awk - it is cleaner:
$ awk -v R='//addr:\\file' '{ sub("THIS", R, $0); print $0 }' <<< "http://file:\_THIS_/path/to/a/file\\is\\\a\\ nightmare"
http://file:\_//addr:\file_/path/to/a/file\\is\\\a\\ nightmare
Here is an example of an AWK I used a while ago. It is an AWK that prints new AWKS. AWK and SED being similar it may be a good template.
ls | awk '{ print "awk " "'"'"'" " {print $1,$2,$3} " "'"'"'" " " $1 ".old_ext > " $1 ".new_ext" }' > for_the_birds
It looks excessive, but somehow that combination of quotes works to keep the ' printed as literals. Then if I remember correctly the vaiables are just surrounded with quotes like this: "$1". Try it, let me know how it works with SED.
These are the escape codes that I've found:
* = \x2a
( = \x28
) = \x29
" = \x22
/ = \x2f
\ = \x5c
' = \x27
? = \x3f
% = \x25
^ = \x5e
sed is typically a mess, especially the difference between gnu-sed and bsd-sed
might just be easier to place some sort of sentinel at the sed side, then a quick pipe over to awk, which is far more flexible in accepting any ERE regex, escaped hex, or escaped octals.
e.g. OFS in awk is the true replacement ::
date | sed -E 's/[0-9]+/\xC1\xC0/g' |
mawk NF=NF FS='\xC1\xC0' OFS='\360\237\244\241'
1 Tue Aug 🤡 🤡:🤡:🤡 EDT 🤡
(tested and confirmed working on both BSD-sed and GNU-sed - the emoji isn't a typo that's what those 4 bytes map to in UTF-8 )
There are dozens of answers out there... If you don't mind using a bash function schema, below is a good answer. The objective below was to allow using sed with practically any parameter as a KEYWORD (F_PS_TARGET) or as a REPLACE (F_PS_REPLACE). We tested it in many scenarios and it seems to be pretty safe. The implementation below supports tabs, line breaks and sigle quotes for both KEYWORD and replace REPLACE.
NOTES: The idea here is to use sed to escape entries for another sed command.
CODE
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=""
f_reverse_string() {
: 'Do a string reverse.
To undo just use a reversed string as STRING_INPUT.
Args:
STRING_INPUT (str): String input.
Returns:
F_REVERSE_STRING_R (str): The modified string.
'
local STRING_INPUT=$1
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=$(echo "x${STRING_INPUT}x" | tac | rev)
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=${F_REVERSE_STRING_R%?}
F_REVERSE_STRING_R=${F_REVERSE_STRING_R#?}
}
# [Ref(s).: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2705678/3223785 ]
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=""
f_power_sed_ecp() {
: 'Escape strings for the "sed" command.
Escaped characters will be processed as is (e.g. /n, /t ...).
Args:
F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP (str): Value to be escaped.
F_PSE_ECP_TYPE (int): 0 - For the TARGET value; 1 - For the REPLACE value.
Returns:
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R (str): Escaped value.
'
local F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP=$1
local F_PSE_ECP_TYPE=$2
# NOTE: Operational characters of "sed" will be escaped, as well as single quotes.
# By Questor
if [ ${F_PSE_ECP_TYPE} -eq 0 ] ; then
# NOTE: For the TARGET value. By Questor
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=$(echo "x${F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP}x" | sed 's/[]\/$*.^[]/\\&/g' | sed "s/'/\\\x27/g" | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\n/g')
else
# NOTE: For the REPLACE value. By Questor
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=$(echo "x${F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP}x" | sed 's/[\/&]/\\&/g' | sed "s/'/\\\x27/g" | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/\\n/g')
fi
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=${F_POWER_SED_ECP_R%?}
F_POWER_SED_ECP_R=${F_POWER_SED_ECP_R#?}
}
# [Ref(s).: https://stackoverflow.com/a/24134488/3223785 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/21740695/3223785 ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/655558/61742 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/11461628/3223785 ,
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/45151986/3223785 ,
# https://linuxaria.com/pills/tac-and-rev-to-see-files-in-reverse-order ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/631355/61742 ]
F_POWER_SED_R=""
f_power_sed() {
: 'Facilitate the use of the "sed" command. Replaces in files and strings.
Args:
F_PS_TARGET (str): Value to be replaced by the value of F_PS_REPLACE.
F_PS_REPLACE (str): Value that will replace F_PS_TARGET.
F_PS_FILE (Optional[str]): File in which the replacement will be made.
F_PS_SOURCE (Optional[str]): String to be manipulated in case "F_PS_FILE" was
not informed.
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR (Optional[int]): [1~n] - Replace the nth match; [n~-1] - Replace
the last nth match; 0 - Replace every match; Default 1.
Returns:
F_POWER_SED_R (str): Return the result if "F_PS_FILE" is not informed.
'
local F_PS_TARGET=$1
local F_PS_REPLACE=$2
local F_PS_FILE=$3
local F_PS_SOURCE=$4
local F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=$5
if [ -z "$F_PS_NTH_OCCUR" ] ; then
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=1
fi
local F_PS_REVERSE_MODE=0
if [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -lt -1 ] ; then
F_PS_REVERSE_MODE=1
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_TARGET"
F_PS_TARGET="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_REPLACE"
F_PS_REPLACE="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
f_reverse_string "$F_PS_SOURCE"
F_PS_SOURCE="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
F_PS_NTH_OCCUR=$((-F_PS_NTH_OCCUR))
fi
f_power_sed_ecp "$F_PS_TARGET" 0
F_PS_TARGET=$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R
f_power_sed_ecp "$F_PS_REPLACE" 1
F_PS_REPLACE=$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R
local F_PS_SED_RPL=""
if [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -eq -1 ] ; then
# NOTE: We kept this option because it performs better when we only need to replace
# the last occurrence. By Questor
# [Ref(s).: https://linuxhint.com/use-sed-replace-last-occurrence/ ,
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/713866/61742 ]
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/\(.*\)$F_PS_TARGET/\1$F_PS_REPLACE/'"
elif [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -gt 0 ] ; then
# [Ref(s).: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/587924/61742 ]
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/$F_PS_TARGET/$F_PS_REPLACE/$F_PS_NTH_OCCUR'"
elif [ ${F_PS_NTH_OCCUR} -eq 0 ] ; then
F_PS_SED_RPL="'s/$F_PS_TARGET/$F_PS_REPLACE/g'"
fi
# NOTE: As the "sed" commands below always process literal values for the "F_PS_TARGET"
# so we use the "-z" flag in case it has multiple lines. By Quaestor
# [Ref(s).: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/525524/61742 ]
if [ -z "$F_PS_FILE" ] ; then
F_POWER_SED_R=$(echo "x${F_PS_SOURCE}x" | eval "sed -z $F_PS_SED_RPL")
F_POWER_SED_R=${F_POWER_SED_R%?}
F_POWER_SED_R=${F_POWER_SED_R#?}
if [ ${F_PS_REVERSE_MODE} -eq 1 ] ; then
f_reverse_string "$F_POWER_SED_R"
F_POWER_SED_R="$F_REVERSE_STRING_R"
fi
else
if [ ${F_PS_REVERSE_MODE} -eq 0 ] ; then
eval "sed -i -z $F_PS_SED_RPL \"$F_PS_FILE\""
else
tac "$F_PS_FILE" | rev | eval "sed -z $F_PS_SED_RPL" | tac | rev > "$F_PS_FILE"
fi
fi
}
MODEL
f_power_sed "F_PS_TARGET" "F_PS_REPLACE" "" "F_PS_SOURCE"
echo "$F_POWER_SED_R"
EXAMPLE
f_power_sed "{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate" "[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"" "" "Great answer (+1). If you change your awk to awk '{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate that concatenation of the final \", \" then you don't have to go through the gymnastics on eliminating the final record. So: readarray -td '' a < <(awk '{ gsub(/,[ ]+/,\"\0\"); print; }' <<<\"$string\") on Bash that supports readarray. Note your method is Bash 4.4+ I think because of the -d in readar"
echo "$F_POWER_SED_R"
IF YOU JUST WANT TO ESCAPE THE PARAMETERS TO THE SED COMMAND
MODEL
# "TARGET" value.
f_power_sed_ecp "F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP" 0
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
# "REPLACE" value.
f_power_sed_ecp "F_PSE_VAL_TO_ECP" 1
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
IMPORTANT: If the strings for KEYWORD and/or replace REPLACE contain tabs or line breaks you will need to use the "-z" flag in your "sed" command. More details here.
EXAMPLE
f_power_sed_ecp "{ gsub(/,[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"); print }' ./ and eliminate" 0
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
f_power_sed_ecp "[ ]+|$/,\"\0\"" 1
echo "$F_POWER_SED_ECP_R"
NOTE: The f_power_sed_ecp and f_power_sed functions above was made available completely free as part of this project ez_i - Create shell script installers easily!.
Standard recommendation here: use perl :)
echo KEYWORD > /tmp/test
REPLACE="<funny characters here>"
perl -pi.bck -e "s/KEYWORD/${REPLACE}/g" /tmp/test
cat /tmp/test
don't forget all the pleasure that occur with the shell limitation around " and '
so (in ksh)
Var=">New version of \"content' here <"
printf "%s" "${Var}" | sed "s/[&\/\\\\*\\"']/\\&/g' | read -r EscVar
echo "Here is your \"text\" to change" | sed "s/text/${EscVar}/g"
If the case happens to be that you are generating a random password to pass to sed replace pattern, then you choose to be careful about which set of characters in the random string. If you choose a password made by encoding a value as base64, then there is is only character that is both possible in base64 and is also a special character in sed replace pattern. That character is "/", and is easily removed from the password you are generating:
# password 32 characters log, minus any copies of the "/" character.
pass=`openssl rand -base64 32 | sed -e 's/\///g'`;
If you are just looking to replace Variable value in sed command then just remove
Example:
sed -i 's/dev-/dev-$ENV/g' test to sed -i s/dev-/dev-$ENV/g test
I have an improvement over the sedeasy function, which WILL break with special characters like tab.
function sedeasy_improved {
sed -i "s/$(
echo "$1" | sed -e 's/\([[\/.*]\|\]\)/\\&/g'
| sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g'
)/$(
echo "$2" | sed -e 's/[\/&]/\\&/g'
| sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g'
)/g" "$3"
}
So, whats different? $1 and $2 wrapped in quotes to avoid shell expansions and preserve tabs or double spaces.
Additional piping | sed -e 's:\t:\\t:g' (I like : as token) which transforms a tab in \t.
An easier way to do this is simply building the string before hand and using it as a parameter for sed
rpstring="s/KEYWORD/$REPLACE/g"
sed -i $rpstring test.txt

How to get a number with variable number of digits from a string in a file using bash script?

I have the following file:
APP_VERSION.ts
export const APP_VERSION = 1;
This is the only content of that file, and the APP_VERSION variable will be incremented as needed.
So, the APP_VERSION could be a single digit number or multiple digit number, like 15 or 999, etc.
I need to use that value in one of my bash scripts.
use-app-version.sh
APP_VERSION=`cat src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts`
echo $APP_VERSION
I know I can read it with cat. But how can I parse that string so I can get exactly the APP_VERSION value, whether it's 1 or 999, for example.
sed -En 's/(^.*APP_VERSION.*)([[:digit:]]+.*)(\;.*$)/\2/p' src/constants/APP_VERSION
Using sed, split the line into three sections defined by opening and closing brackets. Substitute the line for second section on ( the version value) and print.
You may use this awk:
app_ver=$(awk -F '[[:blank:];=]+' '$(NF-2) == "APP_VERSION" {print $(NF-1)}' src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts)
echo "$app_ver"
1
You can concat some commands to remove everything else:
APP_VERSION=`cat src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts | awk -F '=' '{print $2}' | tr -d ' ' | tr -d ';'`
1 - Cat get all file content
2 - AWK gets all content after '='
3 - Remove space
4 - Remove ;
A simple
APP_VERSION=$(grep --text -Eo '[0-9]+' src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts)
should be enough
With bash only:
APP_VERSION=$(cat src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts)
APP_VERSION=${APP_VERSION%;}
APP_VERSION=${APP_VERSION/*= }
Line 2 removes the trailing ';', line 3 removes everything before "= ".
Alternatively, you could set APP_VERSION as an array, take 5th element, and remove trailing ';'.
Or, another solution, using IFS:
IFS='=;' read a APP_VERSION < src/constants/APP_VERSION.ts
In this version, the space will remain before version number.
Assuming that the task can be rephrased to "extract the digits from a file", there are a few options:
Delete all characters that aren't digits with tr:
version=$(tr -cd '[:digit:]' < infile)
Use grep to match all digits and retain nothing but the match:
version=$(grep -Eo '[[:digit:]]+' infile)
Read file into string and delete all non-digits with just Bash:
contents=$(< infile)
version=${contents//[![:digit:]]}

Bash ./ get subset with length of 8 chars

I have the following input:
line="before,myinput1,after"
myinput1 can be also first or last. for example: line="myinput1,after" or line="before,myinput1"
Im trying to get only the myinput1 value (which can be changed). tried this:
line | grep -o -E ',.{0,7}.,'
which its returned the following value: ,myinput1,. The issue its not working if the value is first or last because the missing ,.
is there any other way to do that?
Using grep, a regex for 8 characters (assuming you only want an 8 character string) is \w{8}. Using OR operators | the three cases needed (start of line, end of line and somewhere in the middle of the line) can be expressed as:
egrep -o ',\w{8},|^\w{8},|,\w{8}$'
To catch fields of 8 characters in a comma delimited string, you can use awk:
awk -v RS=, 'length()==8' <<< "$line"
RS sets the record separator to the comma ,.
awk length() function gives the size of the current record.
With bash :
(IFS=',';set -- $line;for i;do [ ${#i} -eq 8 ] && echo $i ;done)

Bash command to extract characters in a string

I want to write a small script to generate the location of a file in an NGINX cache directory.
The format of the path is:
/path/to/nginx/cache/d8/40/32/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
Note the last 6 characters: d8 40 32, are represented in the path.
As an input I give the md5 hash (13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032) and I want to generate the output: d8/40/32/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
I'm sure sed or awk will be handy, but I don't know yet how...
This awk can make it:
awk 'BEGIN{FS=""; OFS="/"}{print $(NF-5)$(NF-4), $(NF-3)$(NF-2), $(NF-1)$NF, $0}'
Explanation
BEGIN{FS=""; OFS="/"}. FS="" sets the input field separator to be "", so that every char will be a different field. OFS="/" sets the output field separator as /, for print matters.
print ... $(NF-1)$NF, $0 prints the penultimate field and the last one all together; then, the whole string. The comma is "filled" with the OFS, which is /.
Test
$ awk 'BEGIN{FS=""; OFS="/"}{print $(NF-5)$(NF-4), $(NF-3)$(NF-2), $(NF-1)$NF, $0}' <<< "13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032"
d8/40/32/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
Or with a file:
$ cat a
13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15f1f2f3
$ awk 'BEGIN{FS=""; OFS="/"}{print $(NF-5)$(NF-4), $(NF-3)$(NF-2), $(NF-1)$NF, $0}' a
d8/40/32/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
f1/f2/f3/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15f1f2f3
With sed:
echo '13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032' | \
sed -n 's/\(.*\([0-9a-f]\{2\}\)\([0-9a-f]\{2\}\)\([0-9a-f]\{2\}\)\)$/\2\/\3\/\4\/\1/p;'
Having GNU sed you can even simplify the pattern using the -r option. Now you won't need to escape {} and () any more. Using ~ as the regex delimiter allows to use the path separator / without need to escape it:
sed -nr 's~(.*([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{2}))$~\2/\3/\4/\1~p;'
Output:
d8/40/32/13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
Explained simple the pattern does the following: It matches:
(all (n-5 - n-4) (n-3 - n-2) (n-1 - n-0))
and replaces it by
/$1/$2/$3/$0
You can use a regular expression to separate each of the last 3 bytes from the rest of the hash.
hash=13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032
[[ $hash =~ (..)(..)(..)$ ]]
new_path="/path/to/nginx/cache/${BASH_REMATCH[1]}/${BASH_REMATCH[2]}/${BASH_REMATCH[3]}/$hash"
Base="/path/to/nginx/cache/"
echo '13febd65d65112badd0aa90a15d84032' | \
sed "s|\(.*\(..\)\(..\)\(..\)\)|${Base}\2/\3/\4/\1|"
# or
# sed sed 's|.*\(..\)\(..\)\(..\)$|${Base}\1/\2/\3/&|'
Assuming info is a correct MD5 (and only) string
First of all - thanks to all of the responders - this was extremely quick!
I also did my own scripting meantime, and came up with this solution:
Run this script with a parameter of the URL you're looking for (www.example.com/article/76232?q=hello for example)
#!/bin/bash
path=$1
md5=$(echo -n "$path" | md5sum | cut -f1 -d' ')
p3=$(echo "${md5:0-2:2}")
p2=$(echo "${md5:0-4:2}")
p1=$(echo "${md5:0-6:2}")
echo "/path/to/nginx/cache/$p1/$p2/$p3/$md5"
This assumes the NGINX cache has a key structure of 2:2:2.

How to split a string in bash delimited by tab

I'm trying to split a tab delimitted field in bash.
I am aware of this answer: how to split a string in shell and get the last field
But that does not answer for a tab character.
I want to do get the part of a string before the tab character, so I'm doing this:
x=`head -1 my-file.txt`
echo ${x%\t*}
But the \t is matching on the letter 't' and not on a tab. What is the best way to do this?
Thanks
If your file look something like this (with tab as separator):
1st-field 2nd-field
you can use cut to extract the first field (operates on tab by default):
$ cut -f1 input
1st-field
If you're using awk, there is no need to use tail to get the last line, changing the input to:
1:1st-field 2nd-field
2:1st-field 2nd-field
3:1st-field 2nd-field
4:1st-field 2nd-field
5:1st-field 2nd-field
6:1st-field 2nd-field
7:1st-field 2nd-field
8:1st-field 2nd-field
9:1st-field 2nd-field
10:1st-field 2nd-field
Solution using awk:
$ awk 'END {print $1}' input
10:1st-field
Pure bash-solution:
#!/bin/bash
while read a b;do last=$a; done < input
echo $last
outputs:
$ ./tab.sh
10:1st-field
Lastly, a solution using sed
$ sed '$s/\(^[^\t]*\).*$/\1/' input
10:1st-field
here, $ is the range operator; i.e. operate on the last line only.
For your original question, use a literal tab, i.e.
x="1st-field 2nd-field"
echo ${x% *}
outputs:
1st-field
Use $'ANSI-C' strings in the parameter expansion:
$ x=$'abc\tdef\tghi'
$ echo "$s"
abc def ghi
$ echo ">>${x%%$'\t'*}<<"
>>abc<<
read field1 field2 <<< ${tabDelimitedField}
or
read field1 field2 <<< $(command_producing_tab_delimited_output)
Use awk.
echo $yourfield | awk '{print $1}'
or, in your case, for the first field from the the last line of a file
tail yourfile | awk '{x=$1}END{print x}'
There is an easy way for a tab separated string : convert it to an array.
Create a string with tabs ($ added before for '\t' interpretation) :
AAA=$'ABC\tDEF\tGHI'
Split the string as an array using parenthesis :
BBB=($AAA)
Get access to any element :
echo ${BBB[0]}
ABC
echo ${BBB[1]}
DEF
echo ${BBB[2]}
GHI
x=first$'\t'second
echo "${x%$'\t'*}"
See QUOTING in man bash
The answer from https://stackoverflow.com/users/1815797/gniourf-gniourf hints at the use of built in field parsing in bash, but does not really complete the answer. The use of the IFS shell parameter to set the input field separate will complete the picture and give the ability to parse files which are tab-delimited, of a fixed number of fields, in pure bash.
echo -e "a\tb\tc\nd\te\tf" > myfile
while IFS='<literaltab>' read f1 f2 f3;do echo "$f1 = $f2 + $f3"; done < myfile
a = b + c
d = e + f
Where, of course, is replaced by a real tab, not \t. Often, Control-V Tab does this in a terminal.

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