Shell Programming and Scripting

Code:

root@isau02:/data/tmp/testfeld> echo ",,,weeeeeekend"| sed 's/^,\+//'
weeeeeekend

Thanks for your reply.But what I need is,I want to delete starting commas from the variable (say $str) and the changes should be made to the original variable so that when I access $str the next time,the starting commas are not there.Please help.

Code:

str=",,,weeeeeekend"
str=`echo "${str}"| sed 's/^,\+//'`
echo "${str}"
weeeeeekend

You can use the sed ( stream editor) to do this.. Please see the below example so that you can eliminate the starting commas.

$echo ",,,checking" | sed 's/,/ /g'
$ checking

The output will have spaces in front of "checking". To eliminate the space you have to use.


$echo ",,,checking" | sed 's/,//g'
$checking


$echo ",,,checking," | sed 's/^,*//'
$checking


Now you can verify.

See the below two examples:

e.g.1

$str=",,,checking,"
$echo $str | sed 's/,//g'
$checking

This will eliminate all the commas in the string (before, after & in-between).

e.g.2
$str=",,,checking,"
$echo $str | sed 's/^,*//'
$checking,

To remove the beginning commas use the above sed command (It won't remove commas after the characters) like example2.

Hope this will solve the errors..

Alternatively you can use the simple "tr" command to do this..
for eg :
$str=",,,ch,ecking,"
$echo $str | tr -d ","
O/P --> $checking

Thanks,
Saravana