Hi I am trying to compare two strings in a directory. the format is as follows.
{sametext}difference{sametext}.
Note: {sametext} is not static for each file
for example
myfile_1_exercise.txt compared to myfile_2_exercise.txt
Can you tell me how I would match the above strings in an if statement.
Basically I need to know how I would ignore the number in the two strings so that these would be same.
Some example code is shown below:
My example code looks like this:
for g in `ls -d */`;
do
if [ -d $g ]; then
cd $g # down 1 directories
for h in `ls *root`;
do
printf "${Process[${count}]} = ${basedir}/${f}${g}${h}\n"
h1=${h}
if [ "${h1}" = "${h2}" ]; then # NEED to MATCH SOME HOW??????????
echo we have a match
fi
h2=${h1}
let count+=1
done
cd ../
#printf "\n\n\n\n"
fi
done
What should be the test to determine this instead of "${h1}" = "${h2}"?
Cheers,
Mike
"myfile_1_exercise.txt" == "myfile_2_exercise.txt"
You mean the above test should return true (ignoring the numbers) right?
This is what I would have done:
h1="myfile_1_exercise.txt"
h2="myfile_2_exercise.txt"
if [ $( echo ${h1} | sed 's/[0-9]*//g' ) == $( echo ${h2} | sed 's/[0-9]*//g' ) ] ; then
# do something here.
fi
sed comes in handy here.
This basically goes through every file in the directory, extracts the two strings from the filename, and keeps a list of all the unique combinations thereof.
Then, it walks through this list, and uses bash's wildcard expansion to allow you to loop over each collection.
EDIT: Got rid of an ugly hack.
i=0
for f in *_*_*.txt
do
a=`echo "$f" | sed 's/\(.*\)_.*_\(.*\).txt/\1/g'`
b=`echo "$f" | sed 's/\(.*\)_.*_\(.*\).txt/\2/g'`
tmp=${all[#]}
expr match "$tmp" ".*$a:$b.*" >/dev/null
if [ "$?" == "1" ]
then
all[i]="$a:$b"
let i+=1
fi
done
for f in ${all[#]}
do
a=`echo "$f" | sed 's/\(.*\):\(.*\)/\1/g'`
b=`echo "$f" | sed 's/\(.*\):\(.*\)/\2/g'`
echo $a - $b
for f2 in $a_*_$b.txt
do
echo " $f2"
# ...
done
done
Of course, this assumes that all the files you care about follow the *_*_*.txt pattern.
Disclaimer:
Mileage can vary and you may have to adjust and debug the script for corner cases.
You may be better off using Perl for your task.
There could be better solutions even in Bash. This one is not very efficient but it seems to work.
Said that, here is a script that compares two strings according to your requirements. I am sure you can figure how to use it in your directory listing script (for which you may want to consider find by the way)
This script takes two strings and prints match! if they match
$ bash compare.sh myfile_1_exercise.txt myfile_2_exercise.txt
match!
$ bash compare.sh myfile_1_exercise.txt otherfile_2_exercise.txt
$
The script:
#!/bin/bash
fname1=$1
fname2=$2
findStartMatch() {
match=""
rest1=$1 ;
rest2=$2 ;
char1=""
char2=""
while [[ "$rest1" != "" && "$rest2" != "" && "$char1" == "$char2" ]] ; do
char1=$(echo $rest1 | sed 's/\(.\).*/\1/');
rest1=$(echo $rest1 | sed 's/.\(.*\)/\1/') ;
char2=$(echo $rest2 | sed 's/\(.\).*/\1/');
rest2=$(echo $rest2 | sed 's/.\(.*\)/\1/') ;
if [[ "$char1" == "$char2" ]] ; then
match="${match}${char1}"
fi
done
}
findEndMatch() {
match=""
rest1=$1 ;
rest2=$2 ;
char1=""
char2=""
while [[ "$rest1" != "" && "$rest2" != "" && "$char1" == "$char2" ]] ; do
char1=$(echo $rest1 | sed 's/.*\(.\)/\1/');
rest1=$(echo $rest1 | sed 's/\(.*\)./\1/') ;
char2=$(echo $rest2 | sed 's/.*\(.\)/\1/');
rest2=$(echo $rest2 | sed 's/\(.*\)./\1/') ;
if [[ "$char1" == "$char2" ]] ; then
match="${char1}${match}"
fi
done
}
findStartMatch $fname1 $fname2
startMatch=$match
findEndMatch $fname1 $fname2
endMatch=$match
if [[ "$startMatch" != "" && "$endMatch" != "" ]] ; then
echo "match!"
fi
If you are actually comparing two files like you mentiond ... probably you can use diff command like
diff myfile_1_exercise.txt myfile_2_exercise.txt
Related
I have comma separated (sometimes tab) text file as below:
parameters.txt:
STD,ORDER,ORDER_START.xml,/DML/SOL,Y
STD,INSTALL_BASE,INSTALL_START.xml,/DML/IB,Y
with below code I try to loop through the file and do something
while read line; do
if [[ $1 = "$(echo "$line" | cut -f 1)" ]] && [[ "$(echo "$line" | cut -f 5)" = "Y" ]] ; then
//do something...
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]] ; then
// code to replace the final flag
fi
fi
done < <text_file_path>
I wanted to update the last column of the file to N if the above operation is successful, however below approaches are not working for me:
sed 's/$f5/N/'
'$5=="Y",$5=N;{print}'
$(echo "$line" | awk '$5=N')
Update: Few considerations which need to be considered to give more clarity which i missed at first, apologies!
The parameters file may contain lines with last field flag as "N" as well.
Final flag needs to be update only if "//do something" code has successfully executed.
After looping through all lines i.e, after exiting "while loop" flags for all rows to be set to "Y"
perhaps invert the operations do processing in awk.
$ awk -v f1="$1" 'BEGIN {FS=OFS=","}
f1==$1 && $5=="Y" { // do something
$5="N"}1' file
not sure what "do something" operation is, if you need to call another command/script it's possible as well.
with bash:
(
IFS=,
while read -ra fields; do
if [[ ${fields[0]} == "$1" ]] && [[ ${fields[4]} == "Y" ]]; then
# do something
fields[4]="N"
fi
echo "${fields[*]}"
done < file | sponge file
)
I run that in a subshell so the effects of altering IFS are localized.
This uses sponge to write back to the same file. You need the moreutils package to use it, otherwise use
done < file > tmp && mv tmp file
Perhaps a bit simpler, less bash-specific
while IFS= read -r line; do
case $line in
"$1",*,Y)
# do something
line="${line%Y}N"
;;
esac
echo "$line"
done < file
To replace ,N at the end of the line($) with ,Y:
sed 's/,N$/,Y/' file
I'm writing a script in Unix where I have to check whether the first character in a string is "/" and if it is, branch.
For example, I have a string:
/some/directory/file
I want this to return 1, and:
server#10.200.200.20:/some/directory/file
to return 0.
There are many ways to do this. You could use wildcards in double brackets:
str="/some/directory/file"
if [[ $str == /* ]]; then echo 1; else echo 0; fi
You can use substring expansion:
if [[ ${str:0:1} == "/" ]] ; then echo 1; else echo 0; fi
Or a regex:
if [[ $str =~ ^/ ]]; then echo 1; else echo 0; fi
Consider the case statement as well which is compatible with most sh-based shells:
case $str in
/*)
echo 1
;;
*)
echo 0
;;
esac
$ foo="/some/directory/file"
$ [ ${foo:0:1} == "/" ] && echo 1 || echo 0
1
$ foo="server#10.200.200.20:/some/directory/file"
$ [ ${foo:0:1} == "/" ] && echo 1 || echo 0
0
printf '%c "$s"
This was mentioned by brunoais in a comment, and it might be the best option since:
it is likely POSIX. TODO confirm. The following quote from https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/printf.html suggests this:
It shall not be considered an error if an argument operand is not completely used for a b, c, or s conversion.
it can extract the character to a variable unlike using case directly
unlike cut -c1 printf is a Bash built-in so it could be a little bit faster
myvar=abc
first_char="$(printf '%c' "$myvar")"
if [ "$first_char" = a ]; then
echo 'starts with a'
else
echo 'does not start with a'
fi
cut -c1
This is POSIX, and unlike case:
myvar=abc
first_char="$(printf '%s' "$myvar" | cut -c1)"
if [ "$first_char" = a ]; then
echo 'starts with a'
else
echo 'does not start with a'
fi
awk substr is another POSIX command, but less efficient alternative:
printf '%s' "$myvar" | awk '{print substr ($0, 0, 1)}'
printf '%s' is to avoid problems with escape characters: Bash printf literal verbatim string, e.g.,
myvar='\n'
printf '%s' "$myvar" | cut -c1
outputs \ as expected.
${::} does not seem to be POSIX.
See also: How can I extract the first two characters of a string in shell scripting?
Code:
place="Place"
fchar=${place:0:1}
echo $fchar
Output:
P
I need to find strings matching some regexp pattern and represent the search result as array for iterating through it with loop ), do I need to use sed ? In general I want to replace some strings but analyse them before replacing.
Using sed and diff:
sed -i.bak 's/this/that/' input
diff input input.bak
GNU sed will create a backup file before substitutions, and diff will show you those changes. However, if you are not using GNU sed:
mv input input.bak
sed 's/this/that/' input.bak > input
diff input input.bak
Another method using grep:
pattern="/X"
subst=that
while IFS='' read -r line; do
if [[ $line = *"$pattern"* ]]; then
echo "changing line: $line" 1>&2
echo "${line//$pattern/$subst}"
else
echo "$line"
fi
done < input > output
The best way to do this would be to use grep to get the lines, and populate an array with the result using newline as the internal field separator:
#!/bin/bash
# get just the desired lines
results=$(grep "mypattern" mysourcefile.txt)
# change the internal field separator to be a newline
IFS=$'/n'
# populate an array from the result lines
lines=($results)
# return the third result
echo "${lines[2]}"
You could build a loop to iterate through the results of the array, but a more traditional and simple solution would just be to use bash's iteration:
for line in $lines; do
echo "$line"
done
FYI: Here is a similar concept I created for fun. I thought it would be good to show how to loop a file and such with this. This is a script where I look at a Linux sudoers file check that it contains one of the valid words in my valid_words array list. Of course it ignores the comment "#" and blank "" lines with sed. In this example, we would probably want to just print the Invalid lines only but this script prints both.
#!/bin/bash
# -- Inspect a sudoer file, look for valid and invalid lines.
file="${1}"
declare -a valid_words=( _Alias = Defaults includedir )
actual_lines=$(cat "${file}" | wc -l)
functional_lines=$(cat "${file}" | sed '/^\s*#/d;/^\s*$/d' | wc -l)
while read line ;do
# -- set the line to nothing "" if it has a comment or is empty line.
line="$(echo "${line}" | sed '/^\s*#/d;/^\s*$/d')"
# -- if not set to nothing "", check if the line is valid from our list of valid words.
if ! [[ -z "$line" ]] ;then
unset found
for each in "${valid_words[#]}" ;do
found="$(echo "$line" | egrep -i "$each")"
[[ -z "$found" ]] || break;
done
[[ -z "$found" ]] && { echo "Invalid=$line"; sleep 3; } || echo "Valid=$found"
fi
done < "${file}"
echo "actual lines: $actual_lines funtional lines: $functional_lines"
I found similar questions but not in Linux/Bash
I want my script to create a file with a given name (via user input) but add number at the end if filename already exists.
Example:
$ create somefile
Created "somefile.ext"
$ create somefile
Created "somefile-2.ext"
The following script can help you. You should not be running several copies of the script at the same time to avoid race condition.
name=somefile
if [[ -e $name.ext || -L $name.ext ]] ; then
i=0
while [[ -e $name-$i.ext || -L $name-$i.ext ]] ; do
let i++
done
name=$name-$i
fi
touch -- "$name".ext
Easier:
touch file`ls file* | wc -l`.ext
You'll get:
$ ls file*
file0.ext file1.ext file2.ext file3.ext file4.ext file5.ext file6.ext
To avoid the race conditions:
name=some-file
n=
set -o noclobber
until
file=$name${n:+-$n}.ext
{ command exec 3> "$file"; } 2> /dev/null
do
((n++))
done
printf 'File is "%s"\n' "$file"
echo some text in it >&3
And in addition, you have the file open for writing on fd 3.
With bash-4.4+, you can make it a function like:
create() { # fd base [suffix [max]]]
local fd="$1" base="$2" suffix="${3-}" max="${4-}"
local n= file
local - # ash-style local scoping of options in 4.4+
set -o noclobber
REPLY=
until
file=$base${n:+-$n}$suffix
eval 'command exec '"$fd"'> "$file"' 2> /dev/null
do
((n++))
((max > 0 && n > max)) && return 1
done
REPLY=$file
}
To be used for instance as:
create 3 somefile .ext || exit
printf 'File: "%s"\n' "$REPLY"
echo something >&3
exec 3>&- # close the file
The max value can be used to guard against infinite loops when the files can't be created for other reason than noclobber.
Note that noclobber only applies to the > operator, not >> nor <>.
Remaining race condition
Actually, noclobber does not remove the race condition in all cases. It only prevents clobbering regular files (not other types of files, so that cmd > /dev/null for instance doesn't fail) and has a race condition itself in most shells.
The shell first does a stat(2) on the file to check if it's a regular file or not (fifo, directory, device...). Only if the file doesn't exist (yet) or is a regular file does 3> "$file" use the O_EXCL flag to guarantee not clobbering the file.
So if there's a fifo or device file by that name, it will be used (provided it can be open in write-only), and a regular file may be clobbered if it gets created as a replacement for a fifo/device/directory... in between that stat(2) and open(2) without O_EXCL!
Changing the
{ command exec 3> "$file"; } 2> /dev/null
to
[ ! -e "$file" ] && { command exec 3> "$file"; } 2> /dev/null
Would avoid using an already existing non-regular file, but not address the race condition.
Now, that's only really a concern in the face of a malicious adversary that would want to make you overwrite an arbitrary file on the file system. It does remove the race condition in the normal case of two instances of the same script running at the same time. So, in that, it's better than approaches that only check for file existence beforehand with [ -e "$file" ].
For a working version without race condition at all, you could use the zsh shell instead of bash which has a raw interface to open() as the sysopen builtin in the zsh/system module:
zmodload zsh/system
name=some-file
n=
until
file=$name${n:+-$n}.ext
sysopen -w -o excl -u 3 -- "$file" 2> /dev/null
do
((n++))
done
printf 'File is "%s"\n' "$file"
echo some text in it >&3
Try something like this
name=somefile
path=$(dirname "$name")
filename=$(basename "$name")
extension="${filename##*.}"
filename="${filename%.*}"
if [[ -e $path/$filename.$extension ]] ; then
i=2
while [[ -e $path/$filename-$i.$extension ]] ; do
let i++
done
filename=$filename-$i
fi
target=$path/$filename.$extension
Use touch or whatever you want instead of echo:
echo file$((`ls file* | sed -n 's/file\([0-9]*\)/\1/p' | sort -rh | head -n 1`+1))
Parts of expression explained:
list files by pattern: ls file*
take only number part in each line: sed -n 's/file\([0-9]*\)/\1/p'
apply reverse human sort: sort -rh
take only first line (i.e. max value): head -n 1
combine all in pipe and increment (full expression above)
Try something like this (untested, but you get the idea):
filename=$1
# If file doesn't exist, create it
if [[ ! -f $filename ]]; then
touch $filename
echo "Created \"$filename\""
exit 0
fi
# If file already exists, find a similar filename that is not yet taken
digit=1
while true; do
temp_name=$filename-$digit
if [[ ! -f $temp_name ]]; then
touch $temp_name
echo "Created \"$temp_name\""
exit 0
fi
digit=$(($digit + 1))
done
Depending on what you're doing, replace the calls to touch with whatever code is needed to create the files that you are working with.
This is a much better method I've used for creating directories incrementally.
It could be adjusted for filename too.
LAST_SOLUTION=$(echo $(ls -d SOLUTION_[[:digit:]][[:digit:]][[:digit:]][[:digit:]] 2> /dev/null) | awk '{ print $(NF) }')
if [ -n "$LAST_SOLUTION" ] ; then
mkdir SOLUTION_$(printf "%04d\n" $(expr ${LAST_SOLUTION: -4} + 1))
else
mkdir SOLUTION_0001
fi
A simple repackaging of choroba's answer as a generalized function:
autoincr() {
f="$1"
ext=""
# Extract the file extension (if any), with preceeding '.'
[[ "$f" == *.* ]] && ext=".${f##*.}"
if [[ -e "$f" ]] ; then
i=1
f="${f%.*}";
while [[ -e "${f}_${i}${ext}" ]]; do
let i++
done
f="${f}_${i}${ext}"
fi
echo "$f"
}
touch "$(autoincr "somefile.ext")"
without looping and not use regex or shell expr.
last=$(ls $1* | tail -n1)
last_wo_ext=$($last | basename $last .ext)
n=$(echo $last_wo_ext | rev | cut -d - -f 1 | rev)
if [ x$n = x ]; then
n=2
else
n=$((n + 1))
fi
echo $1-$n.ext
more simple without extension and exception of "-1".
n=$(ls $1* | tail -n1 | rev | cut -d - -f 1 | rev)
n=$((n + 1))
echo $1-$n.ext
I am trying to write a script in bash that check the validity of a user input.
I want to match the input (say variable x) to a list of valid values.
what I have come up with at the moment is:
for item in $list
do
if [ "$x" == "$item" ]; then
echo "In the list"
exit
fi
done
My question is if there is a simpler way to do this,
something like a list.contains(x) for most programming languages.
Say list is:
list="11 22 33"
my code will echo the message only for those values since list is treated as an array and not a string,
all the string manipulations will validate 1 while I would want it to fail.
[[ $list =~ (^|[[:space:]])$x($|[[:space:]]) ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
or create a function:
contains() {
[[ $1 =~ (^|[[:space:]])$2($|[[:space:]]) ]] && exit(0) || exit(1)
}
to use it:
contains aList anItem
echo $? # 0： match, 1: failed
how about
echo $list | grep -w -q $x
you could either check the output or $? of above line to make the decision.
grep -w checks on whole word patterns. Adding -q prevents echoing the list.
Matvey is right, but you should quote $x and consider any kind of "spaces" (e.g. new line) with
[[ $list =~ (^|[[:space:]])"$x"($|[[:space:]]) ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
so, i.e.
# list_include_item "10 11 12" "2"
function list_include_item {
local list="$1"
local item="$2"
if [[ $list =~ (^|[[:space:]])"$item"($|[[:space:]]) ]] ; then
# yes, list include item
result=0
else
result=1
fi
return $result
}
end then
`list_include_item "10 11 12" "12"` && echo "yes" || echo "no"
or
if `list_include_item "10 11 12" "1"` ; then
echo "yes"
else
echo "no"
fi
Note that you must use "" in case of variables:
`list_include_item "$my_list" "$my_item"` && echo "yes" || echo "no"
IMHO easiest solution is to prepend and append the original string with a space and check against a regex with [[ ]]
haystack='foo bar'
needle='bar'
if [[ " $haystack " =~ .*\ $needle\ .* ]]; then
...
fi
this will not be false positive on values with values containing the needle as a substring, e.g. with a haystack foo barbaz.
(The concept is shamelessly stolen form JQuery's hasClass()-Method)
You can use (* wildcards) outside a case statement, too, if you use double brackets:
string='My string';
if [[ $string == *My* ]]
then
echo "It's there!";
fi
If it isn't too long; you can just string them between equality along a logical OR comparison like so.
if [ $ITEM == "item1" -o $ITEM == "item2" -o $ITEM == "item3" ]; then
echo In the list
fi
I had this exact problem and while the above is ugly it is more obvious what is going on than the other generalized solutions.
If your list of values is to be hard-coded in the script, it's fairly simple to test using case. Here's a short example, which you can adapt to your requirements:
for item in $list
do
case "$x" in
item1|item2)
echo "In the list"
;;
not_an_item)
echo "Error" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
done
If the list is an array variable at runtime, one of the other answers is probably a better fit.
There's a cleaner way to check if string is in the list:
if [[ $my_str = #(str1|str2|str3) ]]; then
echo "string found"
fi
Consider exploiting the keys of associative arrays. I would presume this outperforms both regex/pattern matching and looping, although I haven't profiled it.
declare -A list=( [one]=1 [two]=two [three]='any non-empty value' )
for value in one two three four
do
echo -n "$value is "
# a missing key expands to the null string,
# and we've set each interesting key to a non-empty value
[[ -z "${list[$value]}" ]] && echo -n '*not* '
echo "a member of ( ${!list[*]} )"
done
Output:
one is a member of ( one two three )
two is a member of ( one two three )
three is a member of ( one two three )
four is *not* a member of ( one two three )
If the list is fixed in the script, I like the following the best:
validate() {
grep -F -q -x "$1" <<EOF
item 1
item 2
item 3
EOF
}
Then use validate "$x" to test if $x is allowed.
If you want a one-liner, and don't care about whitespace in item names, you can use this (notice -w instead of -x):
validate() { echo "11 22 33" | grep -F -q -w "$1"; }
Notes:
This is POSIX sh compliant.
validate does not accept substrings (remove the -x option to grep if you want that).
validate interprets its argument as a fixed string, not a regular
expression (remove the -F option to grep if you want that).
Sample code to exercise the function:
for x in "item 1" "item2" "item 3" "3" "*"; do
echo -n "'$x' is "
validate "$x" && echo "valid" || echo "invalid"
done
I find it's easier to use the form echo $LIST | xargs -n1 echo | grep $VALUE as illustrated below:
LIST="ITEM1 ITEM2"
VALUE="ITEM1"
if [ -n "`echo $LIST | xargs -n1 echo | grep -e \"^$VALUE`$\" ]; then
...
fi
This works for a space-separated list, but you could adapt it to any other delimiter (like :) by doing the following:
LIST="ITEM1:ITEM2"
VALUE="ITEM1"
if [ -n "`echo $LIST | sed 's|:|\\n|g' | grep -e \"^$VALUE`$\"`" ]; then
...
fi
Note that the " are required for the test to work.
Thought I'd add my solution to the list.
# Checks if element "$1" is in array "$2"
# #NOTE:
# Be sure that array is passed in the form:
# "${ARR[#]}"
elementIn () {
# shopt -s nocasematch # Can be useful to disable case-matching
local e
for e in "${#:2}"; do [[ "$e" == "$1" ]] && return 0; done
return 1
}
# Usage:
list=(11 22 33)
item=22
if elementIn "$item" "${list[#]}"; then
echo TRUE;
else
echo FALSE
fi
# TRUE
item=44
elementIn $item "${list[#]}" && echo TRUE || echo FALSE
# FALSE
The shell built-in compgen can help here. It can take a list with the -W flag and return any of the potential matches it finds.
# My list can contain spaces so I want to set the internal
# file separator to newline to preserve the original strings.
IFS=$'\n'
# Create a list of acceptable strings.
accept=( 'foo' 'bar' 'foo bar' )
# The string we will check
word='foo'
# compgen will return a list of possible matches of the
# variable 'word' with the best match being first.
compgen -W "${accept[*]}" "$word"
# Returns:
# foo
# foo bar
We can write a function to test if a string equals the best match of acceptable strings. This allows you to return a 0 or 1 for a pass or fail respectively.
function validate {
local IFS=$'\n'
local accept=( 'foo' 'bar' 'foo bar' )
if [ "$1" == "$(compgen -W "${accept[*]}" "$1" | head -1)" ] ; then
return 0
else
return 1
fi
}
Now you can write very clean tests to validate if a string is acceptable.
validate "blah" || echo unacceptable
if validate "foo" ; then
echo acceptable
else
echo unacceptable
fi
Prior answers don't use tr which I found to be useful with grep. Assuming that the items in the list are space delimited, to check for an exact match:
echo $mylist | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -F -x -q "$myitem"
This will return exit code 0 if the item is in the list, or exit code 1 if it isn't.
It's best to use it as a function:
_contains () { # Check if space-separated list $1 contains line $2
echo "$1" | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -F -x -q "$2"
}
mylist="aa bb cc"
# Positive check
if _contains "${mylist}" "${myitem}"; then
echo "in list"
fi
# Negative check
if ! _contains "${mylist}" "${myitem}"; then
echo "not in list"
fi
Late to the show? Following very easy variant was not clearly mentioned yet. I use case for checking simple lists, which is a general Bourne Shell idiom not relying on anything external nor extended:
haystack='a b c'
needle='b'
case " $haystack " in (*" $needle "*) :;; (*) false;; esac
Please note the use of the separator (here: SPC) to correcyly delimit the pattern: At the beginning and end of " $haystack " and likewise in the test of " $needle ".
This statement returns true ($?=0) in case $needle is in $haystack, false otherwise.
Also you can test for more than one $needle very easily. When there are several similar cases like
if (haystack.contains(needle1)) { run1() } elif (haystack.contains(needle2)) { run2() } else { run3() }
you can wrap this into the case, too:
case " $haystack " in (*" $needle1 "*) run1;; (*" $needle2 "*) run2;; (*) run3;; esac
and so on
This also works for all lists with values which do not include the separator itself, like comma:
haystack=' a , b , c '
needle=' b '
case ",$haystack," in (*",$needle,"*) :;; (*) false;; esac
Note that if values can contain anything including the separator sequence (except NUL, as shells do not suport NUL in variables as you cannot pass arguments containing NUL to commands) then you need to use arrays. Arrays are ksh/bashisms and not supported by "ordinary" POSIX/Bourne shells. (You can work around this limitation using $# in POSIX-Shells, but this is something completely different than what was aked here.)
Can the (*) false part be left away?
No, as this is the critical return value. By default case returns true.
Yes if you do not need the return value and put your processing at the location of the :
Why the :;;
We could also write true;;, but I am used to use : instead of true because it is shorter and faster to type
Also I consider not writing anything bad practice, as it is not obvious to everybody that the default return value of case is true.
Also "leaving out" the command usually indicates "something was forgotten here". So putting a redundant ":" there clearly indicates "it is intended to do nothing else than return true here".
In bash you can also use ksh/bashisms like ;& (fallthroug) or ;;& (test other patterns) to express if (haystack.contains(needle1)) { run1(); }; if (haystack.contains(needle2)) { run2(); }
Hence usually case is much more maintainable than other regex constructs. Also it does not use regex, it only use shell patterns, which might even be faster.
Reusable function:
: Needle "list" Seperator_opt
NeedleListSep()
{
if [ 3 -gt $# ];
then NeedleListSep "$1" "$2" " ";
else case "$3$2$3" in (*"$3$1$3"*) return 0;; esac; return 1;
fi;
}
In bash you can simplify this to
: Needle "list" Seperator_opt
NeedleListSep()
{
local s="${3-" "}";
case "$s$2$s" in (*"$s$1$s"*) return 0;; esac; return 1;
}
Use like this
Test() {
NeedleListSep "$1" "a b c" && echo found $1 || echo no $1;
NeedleListSep "$1" "a,b,c" ',' && echo found $1 || echo no $1;
NeedleListSep "$1" "a # b # c" ' # ' && echo found $1 || echo no $1;
NeedleListSep "$1" "abc" '' && echo found $1 || echo no $1;
}
Test a
Test z
As shown above, this also works for degerated cases where the separator is the empty string (so each character of the list is a needle). Example:
Test
returns
no
no
no
found
As the empty string is cleary part of abc in case your separator is the empty string, right?
Note that this function is Public Domain as there is absolutely nothing to it which can be genuinely copyrighted.
An alternative solution inspired by the accepted response, but that uses an inverted logic:
MODE="${1}"
echo "<${MODE}>"
[[ "${MODE}" =~ ^(preview|live|both)$ ]] && echo "OK" || echo "Uh?"
Here, the input ($MODE) must be one of the options in the regular expression ('preview', 'live', or 'both'), contrary to matching the whole options list to the user input. Of course, you do not expect the regular expression to change.
Examples
$ in_list super test me out
NO
$ in_list "super dude" test me out
NO
$ in_list "super dude" test me "super dude"
YES
# How to use in another script
if [ $(in_list $1 OPTION1 OPTION2) == "NO" ]
then
echo "UNKNOWN type for param 1: Should be OPTION1 or OPTION2"
exit;
fi
in_list
function show_help()
{
IT=$(CAT <<EOF
usage: SEARCH_FOR {ITEM1} {ITEM2} {ITEM3} ...
e.g.
a b c d -> NO
a b a d -> YES
"test me" how "test me" -> YES
)
echo "$IT"
exit
}
if [ "$1" == "help" ]
then
show_help
fi
if [ "$#" -eq 0 ]; then
show_help
fi
SEARCH_FOR=$1
shift;
for ITEM in "$#"
do
if [ "$SEARCH_FOR" == "$ITEM" ]
then
echo "YES"
exit;
fi
done
echo "NO"
Assuming TARGET variable can be only 'binomial' or 'regression', then following would do:
# Check for modeling types known to this script
if [ $( echo "${TARGET}" | egrep -c "^(binomial|regression)$" ) -eq 0 ]; then
echo "This scoring program can only handle 'binomial' and 'regression' methods now." >&2
usage
fi
You could add more strings into the list by separating them with a | (pipe) character.
Advantage of using egrep, is that you could easily add case insensitivity (-i), or check more complex scenarios with a regular expression.
This is almost your original proposal but almost a 1-liner. Not that complicated as other valid answers, and not so depending on bash versions (can work with old bashes).
OK=0 ; MP_FLAVOURS="vanilla lemon hazelnut straciatella"
for FLAV in $MP_FLAVOURS ; do [ $FLAV == $FLAVOR ] && { OK=1 ; break; } ; done
[ $OK -eq 0 ] && { echo "$FLAVOR not a valid value ($MP_FLAVOURS)" ; exit 1 ; }
I guess my proposal can still be improved, both in length and style.
Simple oneliner...
if [[ " 11 22 33 " == *" ${x} "* ]]; then echo "${x} is in the list"; fi;
Add before fi: else echo "${x} is NOT in the list";
The script below implements contains function for a list.
function contains {
local target=$1
shift
printf '%s\n' "$#" | grep -x -q "$target"
out=$?
(( out = 1 - out ))
return $out
}
If you convert a string based on white space into a list and use it, it seems to be solved as follows.
list="11 22 33"
IFS=" " read -ra parsed_list <<< "$list"
# parsed_list would be ("11" "22" "33")
contains "11" "${parsed_list[#]}"
echo $? # 1
contains "22" "${parsed_list[#]}"
echo $? # 1
contains "1" "${parsed_list[#]}"
echo $? # 0
contains "11 22" "${parsed_list[#]}"
echo $? # 0