UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,

if for example I had a variable containing the string 'hello', is the any way I can output, for example, the e and the 2nd l based on their position in the string not their character (in this case 2 and 4)?

any general pointers in the right direction will be much appreciated, at present i'm looking at awk but only seem to be able to find references to fields and lines.

thanks

skinnygav p.s. Using Bash shell by the way

---------- Post updated at 08:17 AM ---------- Previous update was at 06:00 AM ----------

I've solved this issue to an extent with

Code:

var1=hello
var2=3
echo $var1 | awk -F "" '{print $2}'

this will output the 2nd character e.

Is there any way I can modify this to output the character in the position stored in var2?

Code:

var1=hello
var2=3
echo $var1 | awk -F "" '{print $var2}'

does not work...

A different approach:

Code:

#! /bin/bash

TXT='halo'
POS=3

echo "${TXT:$(($POS-1)):1}"

exit 0

Code:

[house@leonov] sh test.bash
l

ok now have

Code:

echo $var1 | eval awk -F \"\" \'{print \$$var2}\'

which works fine, thanks for all your help guys!

---------- Post updated at 08:31 AM ---------- Previous update was at 08:29 AM ----------

oh thanks dr house, i'll have a look at that syntax as it means I will b able to echo -n so that all characters are output to the same line.

does print within awk have a similar option?

No need for "echo -n" - you could echo more than one substring with the same line of code