Sponsored Content
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Testing the last character in a string Post 53180 by Perderabo on Wednesday 7th of July 2004 11:46:11 AM
Old 07-07-2004
Quote:
Originally posted by dbrundrett
Can I ask you to tell me what each bit of this assignment does...
lastchr=${a#${a%?}}

What does 'a#' and 'a%?' do...

Thanks a lot
First ${a%<pattern>} strips the pattern off the end of the contents of the variable. And ? is a pattern that matches a single character. So ${a%?} is $a with the last character missing.

And ${a#<pattern>} strips the pattern off of the front of the variable.

Unlike expr, these are shell built-in's. To run expr, you must fork() and then exec(). Staying with shell built-in's delivers real performance benefits.
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Removing first character in a string

While writing a shell script i happen to store some value in a string. Lets say the value is 59788. Now in this script i want to get the value 9788 removing the first charater 5. The original string length usually remains constant. Is there a single line command to do this or any simple way to... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: npn
4 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

bash: testing if string is a number

How do you test if a string is a number? Trying to do something like this: x="AS" if( x is not a number ); then x=0 fi Because I want to do number arithmetic with x. (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: eur0dad
3 Replies

3. Programming

converting character string to hex string

HI Hi I have a character string which contains some special characters and I need it to display as a hex string. For example, the sample i/p string: ×¥ïA Å gïÛý and the o/p should be : D7A5EF4100C5010067EFDBFD Any pointers or sample code pls. (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: axes
5 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

inserting a character between string

i have a file contains like this: i want to create a script that will insert a comma "." after the 10th character so it would be look like this thanks in advance (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: dakid
5 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Extract the last character of a string

How can I extract the last character of a string (withou knowing how many characters are in that string ! ) (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: annelisa
8 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Korn: How to loop through a string character by character

If I have a string defined as: MyString=abcde echo $MyString How can I loop through it character by character? I haven't been able to find a way to index the string so that I loop through it. shew01 (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: shew01
10 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

testing the last character

hi i try to test the last character in a variable (here $i ) assume i=kljlkjlkA it should be KO and lkjljjlT KO if then echo "ending with A" else echo "no A at the end" fi whether i is ending or not with A i got "no A at the end" i tried with simple [ double this is the... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Nicol
3 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Testing for non-zero length string

Hello, can someone please explain to me why this happens: myserver#echo "$nothing" myserver#if ; then echo "nothing is a zero length string"; fi nothing is a zero length string myserver#if ; then echo "nothing is also a non-zero length string, apparently"; fi nothing is also a non-zero... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: longjon
5 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Testing the length of a string

Hello, Unix-Forums! Is there a command that can check how long a user-entered string is? Please don't give me a code, just the name of the command (playing around yourself is much more fun than just pasting code) edit: I'm sorry, first hit of the forum search gave me the answer. (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: intelinside
1 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed searches a character string for a specified delimiter character, and returns a leading or traili

Hi, Anyone can help using SED searches a character string for a specified delimiter character, and returns a leading or trailing space/blank. Text file : "1"|"ExternalClassDEA519CF5"|"Art1" "2"|"ExternalClass563EA516C"|"Art3" "3"|"ExternalClass305ED16B8"|"Art9" ... ... ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: fspalero
2 Replies
EXPR(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   EXPR(1)

NAME
expr - evaluate arguments as an expression SYNOPSIS
expr arg ... DESCRIPTION
The arguments are taken as an expression. After evaluation, the result is written on the standard output. Each token of the expression is a separate argument. The operators and keywords are listed below. The list is in order of increasing precedence, with equal precedence operators grouped. expr | expr yields the first expr if it is neither null nor `0', otherwise yields the second expr. expr & expr yields the first expr if neither expr is null or `0', otherwise yields `0'. expr relop expr where relop is one of < <= = != >= >, yields `1' if the indicated comparison is true, `0' if false. The comparison is numeric if both expr are integers, otherwise lexicographic. expr + expr expr - expr addition or subtraction of the arguments. expr * expr expr / expr expr % expr multiplication, division, or remainder of the arguments. expr : expr The matching operator compares the string first argument with the regular expression second argument; regular expression syntax is the same as that of ed(1). The (...) pattern symbols can be used to select a portion of the first argument. Otherwise, the matching operator yields the number of characters matched (`0' on failure). ( expr ) parentheses for grouping. Examples: To add 1 to the Shell variable a: a=`expr $a + 1` To find the filename part (least significant part) of the pathname stored in variable a, which may or may not contain `/': expr $a : '.*/(.*)' '|' $a Note the quoted Shell metacharacters. SEE ALSO
ed(1), sh(1), test(1) DIAGNOSTICS
Expr returns the following exit codes: 0 if the expression is neither null nor `0', 1 if the expression is null or `0', 2 for invalid expressions. EXPR(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:38 PM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy