Manipulate string in shell script

Question

I am writing a shell script for some purpose. I have a variable of the form --

var1 = "policy=set policy"

Now I need to manipulate the variable var to get the string after index =. That is I should have "set policy". Also I need to to this for many other variables where the value of "=" is not constant. Like

var2 = "bgroup = set bgroup port"
var3 = "utm = set security utm"

Can you give me an idea how to do it, please?

Please accept more answers. Also, be aware that you cannot have a space before or after the assignment operator in most shells. — Rafe Kettler
– Rafe Kettler, Commented Apr 17, 2011 at 6:57
The 'too localized' close voter needs to get out of their own shell and into the real world. This is a question about shell programming and fully on topic for SO. — Jonathan Leffler
– Jonathan Leffler, Commented Apr 17, 2011 at 7:03

Rafe Kettler · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-17 07:26:15Z

3

${var#*=}

removes the shortest match of *= from the left. Note that this is not in place: if you want to save the result, you'll have to store the result in a variable.

On a side note, this is for bash. AFAIK it also works for ksh and zsh, but not csh or tcsh.

edited Apr 17, 2011 at 7:26

answered Apr 17, 2011 at 7:00

Rafe Kettler

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1 Comment

Roman Cheplyaka Over a year ago

This is valid POSIX shell code. (*csh are not POSIX shell implementations.)

kurumi · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-17 07:40:54Z

0

Other ways that is not dependent on what shell you have.

$ var1="policy=set policy"
$ echo $var1 | awk '{sub(/.[^=]*=/,"")}1'
set policy
$ echo $var1 | cut -d= -f2-
set policy
$ echo $var1 | ruby -e 'puts gets.split(/=/,2)[1]'
set policy
$ echo $var1 | sed 's/.[^=]*=//'
set policy

answered Apr 17, 2011 at 7:40

kurumi

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