I did not have to write any bash script before. Here is what I need to do.
My script will be run with a set of string arguments. Number of stings will be more than 8. I will have to concatenate strings 9 and onward and make a single string from those. Like this...
myscript s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 s6 s7 s8 s9 s10....(total unknown)
in the script, I need to do this...
new string = s9 + s10 + ...
I am trying something like this...(from web search).
array="${#}"
tLen=${#array[#]}
# use for loop to read string beyond 9
for (( i=8; i<${tLen}; i++ ));
do
echo ${array[$i]} --> just to show string beyond 9
done
Not working. It prints out if i=0. Here is my input.
./tastest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B C
I am expecting A B C to be printed. Finally I will have to make ABC.
Can anyone help?
It should be a lot simpler than the looping in the question:
shift 8
echo "$*"
Lose arguments 1-8; print all the other arguments as a single string with a single space separating arguments (and spaces within arguments preserved).
Or, if you need it in a variable, then:
nine_onwards="$*"
Or if you can't throw away the first 8 arguments in the main shell process:
nine_onwards="$(shift 8; echo "$*")"
You can check that there are at least 9 arguments, of course, complaining if there aren't. Or you can accept an empty string instead — with no error.
And if the arguments must be concatenated with no space (as in the amendment to the question), then you have to juggle with $IFS:
nine_onwards="$(shift 8; IFS=""; echo "$*")"
If I'm interpreting the comments from below this answer correctly, then you want to save the first 8 arguments in 8 separate simple (non-array) variables, and then arguments 9 onwards in another simple variable with no spaces between the argument values.
That's trivially doable:
var1="$1"
var2="$2"
var3="$3"
var4="$4"
var5="$5"
var6="$6"
var7="$7"
var8="$8"
var9="$(shift 8; IFS=""; echo "$*")"
The names don't have to be as closely related as those are. You could use:
teflon="$1"
absinthe="$2"
astronomy="$3"
lobster="$4"
darkest_peru="$5"
mp="$6"
culinary="$7"
dogma="$8"
concatenation="$(shift 8; IFS=""; echo "$*")"
You don't have to do them in that order, either; any sequence (permutation) will do nicely.
Note, too, that in the question, you have:
array="${#}"
Despite the name, that creates a simple variable containing the arguments. To create an array, you must use parentheses like this, where the spaces are optional:
array=( "$#" )
# Create a 0-index-based copy of the array of input arguments.
# (You could, however, work with the 1-based pseudo array $# directly.)
array=( "${#}" )
# Print a concatenation of all input arguments starting with the 9th
# (starting at 0-based index 8), which are passed *individually* to
# `printf`, due to use of `#` to reference the array [slice]
# `%s` as the `printf` format then joins the elements with no separator
# (and no trailing \n).
printf '%s' "${array[#]:8}"
# Alternative: Print the elements separated with a space:
# Note that using `*` instead of `#` causes the array [slice] to be expanded
# to a *single* string using the first char. in `$IFS` as the separator,
# which is a space by default; here you could add a trailing \n by using
# '%s\n' as the `printf` format string.
printf '%s' "${array[*]:8}"
Note that array="${#}" does not create an array - it simply creates a string scalar comprising the concatenation of the input array's elements (invariably) separated by a space each; to create an array, you must enclose it in (...).
To create a space-separated single string from the arguments starting with the 9th enclosed in double quotes, as you request in your follow-up question, use the following:
printf -v var10 '"%s"' "${array[*]:8}"
With the last sample call from your question $var10 will then contain literal "A B C", including the double quotes.
As for assigning arguments 1 through 8 to individual variables.:
Jonathan Leffler's helpful answer shows how to save the first 8 arguments in individual variables.
Here's an algorithmic alternative that creates individual variables based on a given name prefix and sequence number:
n=8 # how many arguments to assign to individual variables
# Create n 'var<i>' variables capturing the first n arguments.
i=0 # variable sequence number
for val in "${array[#]:0:n}"; do
declare "var$((++i))=$val" # create $var<i>, starting with index 1
done
# Print the variables created and their values, using variable indirection.
printf "\nvar<i> variables:\n"
for varName in "${!var#}"; do
printf '%s\n' "$varName=${!varName}"
done
You are close - something like this would work:
array=( ${*} )
# use for loop to read string beyond 9
for (( i=8; i<${#array[*]}; i++ ));
do
echo -n ${array[$i]}
done
Related
In my shell script there is a parameter that comes from certain systems and it gives an answer similar to this one: PAR0000008.
And I need to send only the last number of this parameter to another variable, ie VAR=8.
I used the command VAR=$( echo ${PAR} | cut -c 10 ) and it worked perfectly.
The problem is when the PAR parameter returns with numbers from two decimal places like PAR0000012. I need to discard the leading zeros and send only the number 12 to the variable, but I don't know how to do the logic in the Shell to discard all the characters to the left of the number.
Edit Using grep To Handle 0 As Part Of Final Number
Since you are using POSIX shell, making use of a utility like sed or grep (or cut) makes sense. grep is quite a bit more flexible in parsing the string allowing a REGEX match to handle the job. Say your variable v=PAR0312012 and you want the result r=312012. You can use a command substitution (e.g. $(...)) to parse the value assigning the result to r, e.g.
v=PAR0312012
r=$(echo $v | grep -Eo '[1-9].*$')
echo $r
The grep expression is:
-Eo - use Extended REGEX and only return matching portion of string,
[1-9].*$ - from the first character in [1-9] return the remainder of the string.
This will work for PAR0000012 or PAR0312012 (with result 312012).
Result
For PAR0312012
312012
Another Solution Using expr
If your variable can have zeros as part of the final number portion, then you must find the index where the first [1-9] character occurs, and then assign the substring beginning at that index to your result variable.
POSIX shell provides expr which provides a set of string parsing tools that can to this. The needed commands are:
expr index string charlist
and
expr substr string start end
Where start and end are the beginning and ending indexes to extract from the string. end just has to be long enough to encompass the entire substring, so you can just use the total length of your string, e.g.
v=PAR0312012
ndx=$(expr index "$v" "123456789")
r=$(expr substr "$v" "$ndx" 10)
echo $r
Result
312012
This will handle 0 anywhere after the first [1-9].
(note: the old expr ... isn't the fastest way of handling this, but if you are only concerned with a few tens of thousands of values, it will work fine. A billion numbers and another method will likely be needed)
This can be done easily using Parameter Expension.
var='PAR0000008'
echo "${var##*0}"
//prints 8
echo "${var##*[^1-9]}"
//prints 8
var="${var##*0}"
echo "$var"
//prints 8
var='PAR0000012'
echo "${var##*0}"
//prints 12
echo "${var##*[^1-9]}"
//prints 12
var="${var##*[^1-9]}"
echo "$var"
//prints 12
I am using Bourne Shell. Need to confirm if my understanding of following is correct?
$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
$ VAR="NJ:NY:PA" <-- declare an array with semicolon as separator?
$ echo ${VAR#*} <-- show entire array without separator?
NJ:NY:PA
$ echo ${VAR#*:*} <-- show array after first separator?
NY:PA
$ echo ${VAR#*:*:*} <-- show string after two separator
PA
${var#pattern} is a parameter expansion that expands to the value of $var with the shortest possible match for pattern removed from the front of the string.
Thus, ${VAR#*:} removes everything up and including to the first :; ${VAR#*:*:} removes everything up to and including the second :.
The trailing *s on the end of the expansions given in the question don't have any use, and should be avoided: There's no reason whatsoever to use ${var#*:*:*} instead of ${var#*:*:} -- since these match the smallest amount of text possible, and * is allowed to expand to 0 characters, the final * matches and removes nothing.
If what you really want is an array, you might consider using a real array instead.
# read contents of string VAR into an array of states
IFS=: read -r -a states <<<"$VAR"
echo "${states[0]}" # will echo NJ
echo "${states[1]}" # will echo NY
echo "${#states[#]}" # count states; will emit 3
...which also gives you the ability to write:
printf ' - %s\n' "${states[#]}" # put *all* state names into an argument list
This question already has answers here:
How do I iterate over a range of numbers defined by variables in Bash?
(20 answers)
Variables in bash seq replacement ({1..10}) [duplicate]
(7 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
#!/bin/sh
for i in {1..5}
do
echo "Welcome"
done
Would work, displays Welcome 5 times.
#!/bin/sh
howmany=`grep -c $1 /root/file`
for i in {1..$howmany}
do
echo "Welcome"
done
Doesn't work! howmany would equal 5 as that is what the output of grep -c would display. $1 is parameter 1 which is specific when running the script.
Any ideas?
Workarounds for not being able to use variables in a sequence brace expression:
If the intent is merely to iterate over numbers in a range - as in the OP's case - the best choice is not to use brace expansion, but instead use bash's C-style loop - see user000001's answer.
If the specific numbers aren't important and you simply need to execute a loop body a specified number of times, Cole Tierney's answer is an option.
If use of brace expansion is desired nonetheless:
If you do NOT need the numbers in the list to have a prefix or postfix, use the seq utility with an unquoted command substitution (small caveat: seq is NOT a POSIX utility, but it is widely available); e.g.
echo $(seq 3) -> 1 2 3; start number 1 implied
echo $(seq -f '%02.f' 3) -> 01 02 03 - zero-padded
echo $(seq 2 4) -> 2 3 4; explicit start and end numbers
echo $(seq 1 2 5) -> 1 3 5; custom increment (the 2 in the middle)
If you DO need the numbers in the list to have a prefix or postfix, you have several choices:
Use the seq utility with its -f option for providing a printf-style format string (as used above for zero-padding), or pure Bash workarounds based on eval (extra care needed!) or building an array in a loop, all of which are detailed in this answer.
You could also consider implementing the functionality generically, such as by writing a custom shell function or a custom script with utilities such as awk or perl.
Example of safe use of eval with variables driving a sequence brace expression:
The variables are validated beforehand, to make sure they contain decimal integers.
from=1 to=3 # sample values
# Ensure that $from and $to are decimal numbers and abort, if they are not.
(( 10#$from + 10#$to || 1 )) 2>/dev/null || { echo "Need decimal integers" >&2; exit 1; }
eval echo "A{$from..$to}" # -> 'A1 A2 A3'
General overview of brace expansion
The main purpose of brace expansion is to expand to a list of tokens with each token having an optional prefix and/or postfix; brace expansions must be unquoted and come in 2 flavors:
a fixed series (list) of comma-separated strings - variables supported
specifies and expands to a fixed number of tokens (2 or more); e.g.:
echo A{b,c,d} -> Ab Ac Ad, i.e., 3 tokens, as implied by the number of args.
echo {/,$HOME/}Library e.g., -> /Library /User/jdoe/Library
Variable references - and even globs - are supported, but note that they get expanded after brace expansion, in its result, in the course of normal evaluation.
a sequence expression (range) with .., typically numerical - variables NOT supported
expands to a variable number of tokens, driven by literal start and end points (for historical reasons, use of variables is NOT supported - see the comments on user000001's answer):
[rare] strings: only single English letters allowed; e.g. {a..c}
numbers: decimal integers only; e.g., {1..10}, {10..1}, {-1..2}
example with prefix and postfix: A{1..3}# -> A1# A2# A3#
broken example with variables: {$from..$to} # !! FAILS - $from and $to are interpreted as literals and therefore not recognized as either a single letter or a decimal integer - no brace expansion is performed (see below).
by contrast, using variables does work in zsh and ksh.
bash 4+ adds two features:
optional increment step value:
echo A{1..5..2} -> A1 A3 A5 - numbers incremented by 2
ability to zero-pad:
echo A{001..003} -> A001 A002 A003
An invalid brace expression is not expanded (treated like a regular unquoted string, with { and } treated as literals):
echo {} -> '{}' - invalid as a brace expr.: at least 2 ,-separated tokens needed
This allows the use of unquoted {} with find, for instance.
echo {1..$to} -> '{1..<value-of-$to>}' - invalid as a brace expr. in bash: variables not supported; however, valid in ksh and zsh.
(fish, by contrast, expands any {...} sequence; similarly, zsh has option BRACE_CCL (OFF by default) for expanding individual characters inside {..}, which effectively causes expansion of any nonempty {...} sequence.)
The brace expansion is evaluated before the variables are expanded. You need a c-style for loop instead:
for ((i=1;i<=howmany;i++))
do
echo "Welcome"
done
create a sequence to control your loop
for i in $(seq 1 $howmany); do
echo "Welcome";
done
The problem is that the "brace expansion" is performed before the "variable expansion"
for i in $(seq 1 $howmany)
works as #damienfrancois said, or, if you would like:
for i in $(eval echo "{$start..10}")
probably does, but don't use it for everyone's sanity.
You could also use a while loop:
while ((howmany--)); do
echo "Welcome"
done
We could also use eval in this case:
howmany=`grep -c $1 /root/file`
for i in $(eval echo {1..$howmany}); do
echo "Welcome"
done
Let's assume I have the following string: x="number 1;number 2;number 3".
Access to the first substring is successfull via ${x%%";"*}, access to the last substring is via ${x##*";"}:
$ x="number 1;number 2;number 3"
$ echo "front : ${x%%";"*}" #front-most-part
number 1
$ echo "back : ${x##*";"}" #back-most-part
number 3
$
How do I access the middle part: (eg. number 2)?
Is there a better way to do this if I have (many...) more parts then just three?
In other words: Is there a generic way of accessing substring No. n of string yyy, delimited by string xxx where xxx is an arbitraty string/delimiter?
I have read How do I split a string on a delimiter in Bash?, but I specifically do not want to iterate over the string but rather directly access a given substring.
This specifically does not ask or a split into arrays, but into sub-strings.
With a fixed index:
x="number 1;number 2;number 3"
# Split input into fields by ';' and read the 2nd field into $f2
# Note the need for the *2nd* `unused`, otherwise f2 would
# receive the 2nd field *plus the remainder of the line*.
IFS=';' read -r unused f2 unused <<<"$x"
echo "$f2"
Generically, using an array:
x="number 1;number 2;number 3"
# Split input int fields by ';' and read all resulting fields
# into an *array* (-a).
IFS=';' read -r -a fields <<<"$x"
# Access the desired field.
ndx=1
echo "${fields[ndx]}"
Constraints:
Using IFS, the special variable specifying the Internal Field Separator characters, invariably means:
Only single, literal characters can act as field separators.
However, you can specify multiple characters, in which case any of them is treated as a separator.
The default separator characters are $' \t\n' - i.e., space, tab, and newline, and runs of them (multiple contiguious instances) are always considered a single separator; e.g., 'a b' has 2 fields - the multiple space count as a single separator.
By contrast, with any other character, characters in a run are considered separately, and thus separate empty fields; e.g., 'a;;b' has 3 fields - each ; is its own separator, so there's an empty field between ;;.
The read -r -a ... <<<... technique generally works well, as long as:
the input is single-line
you're not concerned about a trailing empty field getting discarded
If you need a fully generic, robust solution that addresses the issues above,
use the following variation, which is explained in #gniourf_gniourf answer here:
sep=';'
IFS="$sep" read -r -d '' -a fields < <(printf "%s${sep}\0" "$x")
Note the need to use -d '' to read multi-line input all at once, and the need to terminate the input with another separator instance to preserve a trailing empty field; the trailing \0 is needed to ensure that read's exit code is 0.
Don't use:
Create an array with a delimiter of ;:
x="number 1;number 2;number 3"
_IFS=$IFS; IFS=';'
arr=($x)
IFS=$_IFS
echo ${arr[0]} # number 1
echo ${arr[1]} # number 2
echo ${arr[2]} # number 3
Good evening, People
Currently I have an Array called inputArray which stores an input file 7 lines line by line. I have a word which is 70000($s0), how do I split the word so it is 70000 & ($s0) separate?
I looked at an answer which is on this website already but I couldn't understand it the answer I looked at was:
s='1000($s3)'
IFS='()' read a b <<< "$s"
echo -e "a=<$a>\nb=<$b>"
giving the output a=<1000> b=<$s3>
Let me give this a shot.
In certain circumstances, the shell will perform "word splitting", where a string of text is broken up into words. The word boundaries are defined by the IFS variable. The default value of IFS is: space, tab, newline. When a string is to be split into words, any sequence of this set of characters is removes to extract the words.
In your example, the set of characters that delimit words are ( and ). So the words in that string that are bounded by the IFS set of characters are 1000 and $s3
What is <<< "$s"? This is a here-string. It's used to send a string to some command's standard input. It's like doing
echo "$s" | read a b
except that form doesn't work as expected in bash. read a b <<< "$s" works well.
Now, what are the circumstances where word splitting occurs? One is when a variable is unquoted. A demo:
IFS='()'
echo "$s" | wc # 1 line, 1 word and 10 characters
echo $s | wc # 1 line, 2 words and 9 characters
The read command also splits a string into words, in order to assign words to the named variables. The variable a gets the first word, and b gets all the rest.
The command, broken down is:
IFS='()' read a b <<< "$s"
# ^^^^^^^ 1
# ^^^^^^^^ 2
# ^^^^^^^^ 3
only for the duration of the read command, assign the variable IFS the value ()
send the string "$s" to read's stdin
from stdin, use $IFS to split the input into words: assign the first word to variable a and the rest of the string to variable b. Trailing characters from $IFS at the end of the string are discarded.
Documentation:
Word splitting
Here strings
Simple command execution, describing why this assignment of IFS is only in effect for the duration of the read command.
read command
Hope that helps.