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Assign a variable the nth character of a string.

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# 1  
Old 03-06-2013
Assign a variable the nth character of a string.
I see a millioin ways to do this with echo, but what I wan to do is assign a variable the "nth" character of an incoming parameter to a ksh script.

$1 will be "pia"

I need to assign the first character to stmttype.
# 2  
Old 03-06-2013
Code:
#! /bin/ksh
stmttype=${1:0:1}
echo $stmttype

Code:
# ./test.sh pia
p
#

# 3  
Old 03-06-2013
Solution
I found that this works

Code:
bankid=$1
stmttype=$2
jdd=`date '+%j'`

stid=$(expr substr $2 1 1)

echo "ID: $stid"

# 4  
Old 03-06-2013
Depending on your shell, substr may be needed yes. ${stringSmilieffset:length} works in BASH and modern KSH, but if you're stuck with an old Solaris SH or the like, that feature's not there.
# 5  
Old 03-06-2013
RedHat
for old ksh and sh

Code:
#! /bin/ksh 
stmttype=`echo $1 | cut -c1` 
echo $stmttype

Last edited by sam05121988; 03-06-2013 at 12:31 PM.. Reason: new lines didn't show up first time
# 6  
Old 03-06-2013
Try:
Code:
echo "${1%%${1#?}}"

==edit==
as pointed out by alister, it is better to put double quotes around the inner expansion (and only one % is required in this case):
Code:
echo "${1%"${1#?}"}"

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-07-2013 at 05:37 AM.. Reason: improvement
# 7  
Old 03-06-2013
Code:
echo "${1%%${1#?}}"

Why would you do that instead of 'cut'?
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