Anchor(faq73)

How can I use parameter expansion? How can I get substrings? How can I get a file without its extension, or get just a file's extension?

Parameter Expansion is a separate section of the [http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/bash/bash.html#lbBA bash manpage] (also man bash -P 'less -p "^   Parameter Expansion"' or see [http://tiswww.tis.case.edu/~chet/bash/bashref.html#SEC30 the reference] or [http://bash-hackers.org/wiki/doku.php?id=syntax:pe the bash hackers article] about it). It can be hard to understand parameter expansion without actually using it. (DO NOT think about parameter expansion like a regex. It is different and distinct.)

Here's an example of how to use parameter expansion with something akin to a hostname (dot-separated components):

parameter     result
-----------   ------------------------------
${NAME}       polish.ostrich.racing.champion
${NAME#*.}           ostrich.racing.champion
${NAME##*.}                         champion
${NAME%%.*}   polish                        
${NAME%.*}    polish.ostrich.racing         

And, here's an example of the parameter expansions for a typical filename.

parameter     result
-----------   --------------------------------------------------------
${FILE}       /usr/share/java-1.4.2-sun/demo/applets/Clock/Clock.class
${FILE#*/}     usr/share/java-1.4.2-sun/demo/applets/Clock/Clock.class
${FILE##*/}                                                Clock.class
${FILE%%/*}                                                           
${FILE%/*}    /usr/share/java-1.4.2-sun/demo/applets/Clock            

You cannot nest parameter expansions. If you need to perform two separate expansions, use a temporary variable to hold the result of the first expansion.

You may find it helpful to associate that, on your keyboard, the "#" is to the left of the "$" symbol and the "%" symbol is to its right; this corresponds with their acting upon the left (beginning) and right (end) parts of the parameter.

Here are a few more examples (but please see the real documentation for a list of all the features!). I include these mostly so people won't break the wiki again, trying to add new questions that answer this stuff.

${string:2:1}   # The third character of string (0, 1, 2 = third)
${string:1}     # The string starting from the second character
                # Note: this is equivalent to ${string#?}
${string%?}     # The string with its last character removed.
${string: -1}   # The last character of string
${string:(-1)}  # The last character of string, alternate syntax
                # Note: string:-1 means something entirely different.

${file%.mp3}    # The filename without the .mp3 extension
                # Very useful in loops of the form: for file in *.mp3; do ...
${file%.*}      # The filename without its extension (assuming there was
                # only one extension in the first place...).
${file%%.*}     # The filename without all of its extensions
${file##*.}     # The extension only.

Parameter Expansion on Arrays

BASH arrays are remarkably flexible, since they are so well integrated with the other shell expansions. Any expansion you can carry out on a scalar can equally be applied to the whole list in an array. Remember that quoting an array expansion using @, eg "$@" or "${cmd[@]}" results in the members being treated as individual words, irrespective of their content. So for example, arr=("${list[@]}" foo) correctly handles all parameters in the list; we use this to modify an array in place.

First the expansions:

$ a=(alpha beta gamma)  # our base array
$ echo "${a[@]#a}"      # chop 'a' from the beginning of every member
lpha beta gamma
$ echo "${a[@]%a}"      # from the end
alph bet gamm
$ echo "${a[@]//a/f}"   # substitution
flphf betf gfmmf

The following expansions (substitute at beginning or end) are very useful for the next part:

$ echo "${a[@]/#a/f}"   # substitute a for f at start
flpha beta gamma
$ echo "${a[@]/%a/f}"   # at end
alphf betf gammf

We use these to prefix or suffix every member of the list:

$ echo "${a[@]/#/a}"    # append a to beginning
aalpha abeta agamma     #    (thanks to floyd-n-milan for this)
$ echo "${a[@]/%/a}"    # append a to end
alphaa betaa gammaa

This works by substituting an empty string at beginning or end with the value we wish to append.

So finally, a quick example of how you might use this in a script, say to add a user-defined prefix to every target:

$ PFX=inc_
$ a=("${a[@]/#/$PFX}")
$ echo "${a[@]}"
inc_alpha inc_beta inc_gamma

This is very useful, as you might imagine, since it saves looping over every member of the array.

Portability

Since arrays are not portable, nor is their expansion. (Anyone know if ksh does this?)