A bash variable contents are command line arguments, like this:
args="file-1.txt file-2.txt -k file-3.txt -k --some-argument-1 --some-argument-2"
the string -k can appear anywhere in the above string, there are some other arguments that are not -k.
Is it possible to extract all the strings (i.e. file names with all other arguments) except -k from the argument, and assign it to a bash variable?
sedIs is possible to extract all the strings (i.e. file names with all other arguments) except -k from the argument, and assign it to a bash variable?
I am taking that to mean that you want to remove -k while keeping everything else. If that is the case:
$ new=$(echo " $args " | sed -e 's/[[:space:]]-k[[:space:]]/ /g')
$ echo $new
file-1.txt file-2.txt file-3.txt --some-argument-1 --some-argument-2
This question is tagged with bash. Under bash, the use of sed is unnecessary:
$ new=" $args "
$ new=${new// -k / }
$ echo $new
file-1.txt file-2.txt file-3.txt --some-argument-1 --some-argument-2
Piping it to sed should work:
echo $args | sed -e 's/[[:space:]]\-[[:alnum:]\-]*//g'
file-1.txt file-2.txt file-3.txt
and you can assign it to a variable with:
newvar=`echo $args | sed -e 's/[[:space:]]\-[[:alnum:]\-]*//g'`
Command-line arguments in bash should be stored in an array, to allow for arguments that contain characters that need to be quoted.
args=(file-1.txt file-2.txt -k file-3.txt -k --some-argument-1 --some-argument-2)
To extract strings other than -k, just use a for loop to filter them.
newargs=()
for arg in "${args[@]}"; do
[[ $arg = "-k" ]] && newargs+=("$arg")
done
