[SOLVED] how to run 2 bash command back-to-back in bourneShell

nass · 10-10-2011, 02:06 PM

hello everyone,
i'm in a bourneShell
and trying to extract some info of the folder path.

say i have:

/some/deep/path/A/1/common

i'm interesting in acquiring the 2nd to last (deep) folder name (i.e A)

I can do that by using dirname and basename commands

basically the expanded way is:

Quote:

TEMP=`dirname "${A_PATH}"`
NEEDED_FOLDER=`basename "${TEMP}"`

how can I do that in one line??

double `basename `dirname ${A_PATH}`` doesn't work

and the $( basename $( dirname ${A_PATH})) notation is used only in Bash...

any clue?

thank you for your help

acid_kewpie · 10-10-2011, 02:08 PM

this is an excellent example of why backticks are obsolete. just use $( command ) notation instead of ` command `. there's clearly no way you can nest anything using syntax that is identical at both ends.

colucix · 10-10-2011, 02:17 PM

Chris, the /bin/sh shell doesn't provide the $(command) syntax. I think it can be easily accomplished using sed or any other editing tool, e.g

Code:

$ echo $A_PATH | sed -r 's:/[^/]+/(.*)/[^/]+:\1:'
deep/path/A/1

e5150 · 10-10-2011, 02:54 PM

Escape the inner backticks
NEEDED_FOLDER=`basename \`dirname ${A_PATH}\``

acid_kewpie · 10-10-2011, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colucix

Chris, the /bin/sh shell doesn't provide the $(command) syntax. I think it can be easily accomplished using sed or any other editing tool, e.g

Code:

$ echo $A_PATH | sed -r 's:/[^/]+/(.*)/[^/]+:\1:'
deep/path/A/1

I'd still presume they were using bash.

dive · 10-10-2011, 03:16 PM

Or:

Code:

echo $A_PATH | rev | cut -d'/' -f3 | rev

qweasd · 10-10-2011, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colucix

Chris, the /bin/sh shell doesn't provide the $(command) syntax. I think it can be easily accomplished using sed or any other editing tool, e.g

Code:

$ echo $A_PATH | sed -r 's:/[^/]+/(.*)/[^/]+:\1:'
deep/path/A/1

This code does not seem to work as advertized.

Anyway, assuming that (ba)sh is used, it is much faster (according to my naive tests, 191 times faster when used in bulk) to use the built-in substitution rather than to spawn children and open pipes:

Code:

foo=/a/b/c/d/e/f/g ; bar=${foo%/*/*} ; echo ${bar##*/}

I don't know of a way to avoid using a temp variable, but it is still a preferred solution in my eyes, on the account of monstrous performance gains.

nass · 10-10-2011, 05:23 PM

Thank you all for the replies.
As I stated i am using Bourne shell and not Bash.
So it looks like i'll have to keep the not-so-elegant temp variable approach or switch to Dive's rev&cut one.

Both will work in my situation.