How to parse substrings with spaces into shell variables in bash?

Question

What we have:

In a previous question, the following pattern was suggested to recognize lines matching a pattern in bash, and extract parts of that line into shell variables:

re='^\[([[:digit:]:]+)\] \[Server thread/INFO\]: ([^[:space:]]+) entered area ~ ([^[:space:]]+) - [(]PvP[)] ~'
line='[18:51:10] [Server thread/INFO]: Tester121 entered area ~ Wilderness - (PvP) ~'

if [[ $line =~ $re ]]; then
  time=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
  player=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
  area=${BASH_REMATCH[3]}
fi

However, that code doesn't work with a different where the content being matched can contain spaces. Consider the following less-simplified format:

re='???'
line='[19:27:14] [Server thread/INFO]: Tester121 entered area ~ City - Leader Tester777 - (No PvP) ~'

if [[ $line =~ $re ]]; then
  time=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
  player=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
  area=${BASH_REMATCH[3]}
  #leader="Tester777"
  leader=${BASH_REMATCH[4]}
  #pvp="No PvP"
  pvp=${BASH_REMATCH[5]}
fi

What should be the re for it? I am new to regex and try to learn.

It'd be ideal to show what you tried -- so not just a re=??? placeholder, but specifically your own attempt at extending the regex. — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Mar 8, 2017 at 20:35
...btw, I tried to update the title to distinguish how this question is different from the last one. — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Mar 8, 2017 at 20:47

vallentin · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-14 09:24:50Z

2

Since you mention "changes", I'm assuming you aren't supposed to match both cases. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So what about something like:

\[([[:digit:]:]+)\] \[Server thread/INFO\]: ([^[:space:]]+) entered area ~ ([^[:space:]]+) - Leader ([^[:space:]]+) - \(([^)]*)\) ~

You can see a live preview here.

with spaces in it

The key here is $([^)]*)$. It matches everything within the parenthesis. This of course means that you can't have nested (close) parenthesis then.

edited Mar 14, 2017 at 9:24

answered Mar 8, 2017 at 20:29

vallentin

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3 Comments

Charles Duffy Over a year ago

That tester is using PCRE syntax, but the bash =~ operator uses only ERE. One of the particular differences is that ERE doesn't support using *? to make the behavior of * non-greedy.

vallentin Over a year ago

@CharlesDuffy Ohh, didn't realize that!

Charles Duffy Over a year ago

As edited, this looks good to me -- as in, tests out successfully using [[ $line =~ $re ]] in bash.

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