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Shell Programming and Scripting

getting first two characters of variable

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# 1  
Old 03-23-2012
getting first two characters of variable
From a shell script, I'm trying to get the first two characters of an environment variable.

If I type at the command promot:
XX=`echo $MYVAR | cut -c1-2`
echo $XX
It works just fine

However, if I execute the exact same thing from a shell script, I get:
cut: you must specify a list of bytes, characters, or fields
Try `cut --help' for more information.


Thank you.
# 2  
Old 03-23-2012
$MYVAR probably isn't set in the script, then.

Depending on your shell, you can get it much more directly by using shell builtins:

Code:
echo "${VAR:0:2}"

Available in bash and newer ksh.
# 3  
Old 03-23-2012
Most shells:
Code:
echo "${var%${var#??}}"

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