Inspected a character on a particular position in a word

kushalkoolwal · 07-02-2008, 07:20 PM

I have a variable in my shell script, say $DEVICE, which contains the following string:

Code:

/dev/scd0

Now here the letter '0' could be anything like:

Code:

"0" in /dev/scd0
"1" in /dev/scd1
"2" in /dev/scd2
and so on...

Now I would like to inspect which letter is there after the string /dev/scd?

So for example what is there at the position "*" in the string /dev/scd*

Thanks

Mr. C. · 07-02-2008, 07:40 PM

echo $DEVICE | sed 's-^/dev/scd--'

will strip all but the trailing device number. Assign that to a variable:

DEVNO=$(echo $DEVICE | sed 's-^/dev/scd--')

You can also use shell variable string manipulation as well, but the above is easier perhaps for you to initially understand.

chrism01 · 07-02-2008, 07:51 PM

dev=/dev/scd2
echo $dev|cut -c9
2

Mr. C. · 07-02-2008, 08:06 PM

Or perhaps better yet:

Code:

echo /dev/scd26 | perl -lne 'print $1 if /(\d+)$/'
26

in case the device has more than 9 units.

ntubski · 07-02-2008, 08:58 PM

I think in this case shell variable string manipulation is pretty clear (assuming bash):

Code:

~/tmp$ echo $DEVICE
/dev/scd26
~/tmp$ echo ${DEVICE#/dev/scd}
26

Mr. C. · 07-02-2008, 09:23 PM

The problem I personally have with parameter expansion for variables is that it is generally limited and certainly non-intuitive for new users. And once you need slightly more complex patterns, it becomes unwieldy. It uses only a limited form of filename patterns, and doesn't behave as one might expect:

Code:

$ DISK=/dev/sda22
$ echo ${DISK#/dev/*a}
22
$ echo ${DISK#/dev/[a-z]}             # OK, a-z char range matches
da22
$ echo ${DISK#/dev/[a-z]*}            # What!  Ok, maybe longer form...
da22
$ echo ${DISK##/dev/[a-z]*}           # Hmmm, that's not what I want either

$ echo ${DISK#/dev/[a-z][a-z][a-z]}   # Good, but forces 3 chars in pattern
22
$ echo ${DISK#/dev/[a-z][a-z][a-z]*}  # What!  Same as above.
22
$ echo ${DISK##/dev/[a-z][a-z][a-z]*} # Nope.  How do I say "all but last n digits" ?

$

And more complex patterns are even more heinous.

andymalato · 07-02-2008, 09:29 PM

Code:

echo $DEVICE
/dev/sda2
echo ${DEVICE:8:4}
2

Mr. C. · 07-02-2008, 09:46 PM

... but I think one shouldn't have to think hard, worrying about searching the code for finding various oddities like :8:4, which are very specific to only certain devices types. For example, the solution offered doesn't work for devices with varying pattern lengths. Assume we want to find the unit number for either raidNN or sdaNN:

Code:

$ DISK=/dev/raid20
$ echo ${DISK:8:4}   # Oops, won't work.
d20

Kenhelm · 07-03-2008, 04:25 PM

Two more methods:
To return only the part of the line which matches the search pattern:-

Code:

echo /dev/raid20 | grep -o '[0-9]*$'
20

To delete the unwanted characters:-

Code:

echo /dev/raid20 | tr -d '[:alpha:][:punct:]'
20

(but used on '/dev/fd0d360' this outputs '0360' which may or may not be what is wanted.)

Mr. C. · 07-03-2008, 04:53 PM

Who says computer people are not creative!? :-)

Good stuff all.

ghostdog74 · 07-03-2008, 08:37 PM

Code:

# DEVICE=/dev/scd1
# expr "$DEVICE" : '.*scd\(.\)'
1