[SOLVED] Remove / from a string in a bash script

tauro_kpo · 02-01-2013, 05:36 AM

Hello people,

I know very little about bash scripting, but reading a couple of online manuals and forums I managed to create a script that gets the title of a youtube video and creates an empty file with the same name:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
name=$(youtube-dl --get-title $1)
touch "$name"
exit 0

It works flawlessly but when there's a video whose title contains slashes / the file is not created. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBHo6O1vVlc

How can I remove all the slashes from a title and replace them with a vertical bar | ?

Thank you in advance

JohnGraham · 02-01-2013, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tauro_kpo

How can I remove all the slashes from a title and replace them with a vertical bar | ?

If it's a variable (e.g. your $name variable), you can do it with parameter substitution:

Code:

name=${name//\//|}

This is really "${name//REPLACE-THIS/WITH-THIS}".

See the advanced bash scripting guide.

jpollard · 02-01-2013, 07:28 AM

Note - the "/" is a special character used to delimit directories from files. Normally the "|" is also a special character - it is the pipe symbol used to connect the standard output of one command (the one on the left) with the standard input of the next (the one on the right).

It IS possible to put a "|" into files, but it tends to cause a lot of problems with shell scripts that process lists of files.

The more frequent substition is either a _ (used for spaces) and "." (used for anything else).

tauro_kpo · 02-01-2013, 08:32 AM

That worked fantastic John, I'll save that link.

jpollard I'll keep your advice in mind.

Thank you both very much.