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Comments on How to use grep to print only specific word from a string

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How to use grep to print only specific word from a string

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I have a variable that contains a string:

$CCSR = "branches/features/arm_and_musl"

I want to get only the part after the last /. In this case it's "arm_and_musl" but it can be anything.

So something like:

def dirname= sh " echo $CCSR | grep ????? "

But the main issue is that it can be anything. It is "branches/features" this time, though it will always be in this format, with only two forward slashes.

I'm not sure what to put here so that only the part I want is passed to the variable.

Could you please suggest any solutions for this?

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I wouldn't use grep. As the other answers already said, it's not the right tool for this job.

Considering your specific case (fields separated by /), basename is the most straighforward way, as stated in Dirk's answer. I just want to provide some other alternatives.


cut

The cut command can separate the input in fields and allows you to get only the ones you need. If you know for sure that the inputs will always be branches/features/something, then you can use / as separator and get the third field:

echo $CCSR | cut -d / -f 3

Or, if you don't know how many fields there will be, there's a little trick to get the last one:

echo $CCSR | rev | cut -d / -f 1 | rev

rev reverses the input, so first I reverse it, get the first field and reverse it again. The result will be the last field.

awk

The awk command works in a similar way: we tell it what the separator is and can get specific fields. The difference is that it has a better way to get the last one, by using the predefined variable NF:

echo $CCSR | awk -F / '{print $NF}'

Although basename is the most straighforward solution for your case, please note thatcut and awk are more generic, as they can work with different separators and allows you to get specific fields (not only the last one).

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1 comment thread

Thank you sooooo much for such a detailed answer I reallyy appreciate it (1 comment)
Thank you sooooo much for such a detailed answer I reallyy appreciate it
Megan‭ wrote over 1 year ago

Thank you sooooo much for such a detailed answer I reallyy appreciate it