Shell Programming and Scripting

you're likely using this in a shell program that already contains this string in a variable? if not, where is the string, a stream? a file?

how i'd solve this in shell variable:

Code:

$ remove='/c+/d'; var=/a/b/c+/d; echo "${var%"$remove"}"
/a/b

OK. So we now know that you have to variables. Let's call them WholePath and TrailingPath. And, you want to set another variable (let's call it ParentPath) to the initial part of $WholePath with the contents of $TrailingPath removed from its end.

There are several ways to do this, including but not limited to: awk, expr, sed, and various shell parameter expansions. Some are much simpler and some are much faster than others depending on additional information that you haven't shared with us yet:

Bingo, the precise requirement.

1. OS are FreeBSD & Ubuntu Linux 12.x
2. Bash
3. Version 3.2.39 & higher
4. That's not a mandate. TrailingPath can or cannot be present in the WholePath

So, neutronscott's suggestion should do what you want:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
WholePath="/a/b/c+/d"
TrailingPath="/c+/d"
ParentPath=${WholePath%"$TrailingPath"}
printf '    with matching TrailingPath: "%s"\n' "$ParentPath"
TrailingPath="/no/match"
ParentPath=${WholePath%"$TrailingPath"}
printf 'with non-matching TrailingPath: "%s"\n' "$ParentPath"

which produces the output:

Code:

    with matching TrailingPath: "/a/b"
with non-matching TrailingPath: "/a/b/c+/d"

Thanks
Works good with the initial tests.

Will integrate this with our main logic & get back in case of any issues.
Thanks again