substr function in Bash

Bash provides two implementation of substr function which are not identical:

1. Via expr function
2. a part of pattern matching operators in the form ${param:offset[:length}.

I recommend using the second one, as this is more compact notation and does not involves using external function expr.  It also looks more modern, as if inspired by  Python, although its origin has nothing to do with Python. It is actually more compact notation that in Perl.

Implementation via expr function

Classic substr function is available  via expr function:

expr substr $string $position $length

Extracts $length characters from $string  starting at $position.. The first character has index one.

stringZ=abcABC123ABCabc
#       123456789......
#       1-based indexing.

echo `expr substr $stringZ 1 2`              # ab
echo `expr substr $stringZ 4 3`              # ABC

Notes:

• Position is counted from 1, unlike C and Perl
• Behaviour of substr in case $position is larger then the length of the string or if $length overlaps is the same as in Perl. Unlike Perl bash substr implementation does not understand negative values.

Implementation of substr function using :: notation in bash 4.1+

Idiosyncratic, but pretty slick implementation of substring function is also available in bash 3.x as a part of pattern matching operators in the form

${param:offset[:length}

NOTE: Starting with bash 4.1 negative length specification in the ${var:offset:length} expansion,   previously being an error, is now treated as offset from the end of the variable, like in Perl.

If the $string parameter is "*" or "@", then this extracts the positional parameters, starting at $position.

${string:position:length}

stringZ=abcABC123ABCabc
#       0123456789.....
#       0-based indexing.

echo ${stringZ:0}                            # abcABC123ABCabc
echo ${stringZ:1}                            # bcABC123ABCabc
echo ${stringZ:7}                            # 23ABCabc

echo ${stringZ:7:3}                          # 23A
                                             # Three characters of substring.

NOTES:

• Offset count starts with zero like in Perl
• If an `offset' is a variable which evaluates to a number less than zero, it counts back from the end of the string defined by variable $param much like Perl substr
  In this sense it is a preferable implementation.
• ATTENTION: But if you specify negative offset as a numeric literal with minus sigh in the front, unexpected things can happen. This is a well known gotcha.  Consider

  a=12345678
  echo ${a:-4}

  intending to print the last four characters of $a. The problem is that ${param:-word} already has a special meaning: in shell: assigning the value after minus sign to the variable, if the value of variable param is undefined or null.

  To use negative offsets that begin with a minus sign, separate the minus sign and the colon with a space

#
# substr -- a function to emulate the ancient ksh built-in
#

#
# -l == shortest from left
# -L == longest from left
# -r == shortest from right (the default)
# -R == longest from right

substr()
{
	local flag pat str
	local usage="usage: substr -lLrR pat string or substr string pat"

	case "$1" in
	-l | -L | -r | -R)
		flag="$1"
		pat="$2"
		shift 2
		;;
	-*)
		echo "substr: unknown option: $1"
		echo "$usage"
		return 1
		;;
	*)
		flag="-r"
		pat="$2"
		;;
	esac

	if [ "$#" -eq 0 ] || [ "$#" -gt 2 ] ; then
		echo "substr: bad argument count"
		return 2
	fi

	str="$1"

	#
	# We don't want -f, but we don't want to turn it back on if
	# we didn't have it already
	#
	case "$-" in
	"*f*")
		;;
	*)
		fng=1
		set -f
		;;
	esac

	case "$flag" in
	-l)
		str="${str#$pat}"		# substr -l pat string
		;;
	-L)
		str="${str##$pat}"		# substr -L pat string
		;;
	-r)
		str="${str%$pat}"		# substr -r pat string
		;;
	-R)
		str="${str%%$pat}"		# substr -R pat string
		;;
	*)
		str="${str%$2}"			# substr string pat
		;;
	esac

	echo "$str"

	#
	# If we had file name generation when we started, re-enable it
	#
	if [ "$fng" = "1" ] ; then
		set +f
	fi
}

Somewhat strange nuance: taking a slice of the array of positional parameters using :: notation

If the $string parameter is "*" or "@", then this is not substr function. Instead it slice the array of parameters extracts a maximum of $length positional parameters, starting at $position.

echo ${*:2}          # Echoes second and following positional parameters.
echo ${@:2}          # Same as above.

echo ${*:2:3}        # Echoes three positional parameters, starting at second.

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20190911 : string - Extract substring in Bash - Stack Overflow ( Sep 11, 2019 , stackoverflow.com )
• 20190911 : string - Extract substring in Bash - Stack Overflow ( string - Extract substring in Bash - Stack Overflow, Sep 11, 2019 )

Old News ;-)

[Sep 11, 2019] string - Extract substring in Bash - Stack Overflow

Sep 11, 2019 | stackoverflow.com

Jeff ,May 8 at 18:30

Given a filename in the form someletters_12345_moreleters.ext , I want to extract the 5 digits and put them into a variable.

So to emphasize the point, I have a filename with x number of characters then a five digit sequence surrounded by a single underscore on either side then another set of x number of characters. I want to take the 5 digit number and put that into a variable.

I am very interested in the number of different ways that this can be accomplished.

Berek Bryan ,Jan 24, 2017 at 9:30

Use cut :

echo 'someletters_12345_moreleters.ext' | cut -d'_' -f 2

More generic:

INPUT='someletters_12345_moreleters.ext'
SUBSTRING=$(echo $INPUT| cut -d'_' -f 2)
echo $SUBSTRING

JB. ,Jan 6, 2015 at 10:13

If x is constant, the following parameter expansion performs substring extraction:

b=${a:12:5}

where 12 is the offset (zero-based) and 5 is the length

If the underscores around the digits are the only ones in the input, you can strip off the prefix and suffix (respectively) in two steps:

tmp=${a#*_}   # remove prefix ending in "_"
b=${tmp%_*}   # remove suffix starting with "_"

If there are other underscores, it's probably feasible anyway, albeit more tricky. If anyone knows how to perform both expansions in a single expression, I'd like to know too.

Both solutions presented are pure bash, with no process spawning involved, hence very fast.

A Sahra ,Mar 16, 2017 at 6:27

Generic solution where the number can be anywhere in the filename, using the first of such sequences:

number=$(echo $filename | egrep -o '[[:digit:]]{5}' | head -n1)

Another solution to extract exactly a part of a variable:

number=${filename:offset:length}

If your filename always have the format stuff_digits_... you can use awk:

number=$(echo $filename | awk -F _ '{ print $2 }')

Yet another solution to remove everything except digits, use

number=$(echo $filename | tr -cd '[[:digit:]]')

sshow ,Jul 27, 2017 at 17:22

In case someone wants more rigorous information, you can also search it in man bash like this

$ man bash [press return key]
/substring  [press return key]
[press "n" key]
[press "n" key]
[press "n" key]
[press "n" key]

Result:

${parameter:offset}
       ${parameter:offset:length}
              Substring Expansion.  Expands to  up  to  length  characters  of
              parameter  starting  at  the  character specified by offset.  If
              length is omitted, expands to the substring of parameter  start‐
              ing at the character specified by offset.  length and offset are
              arithmetic expressions (see ARITHMETIC  EVALUATION  below).   If
              offset  evaluates  to a number less than zero, the value is used
              as an offset from the end of the value of parameter.  Arithmetic
              expressions  starting  with  a - must be separated by whitespace
              from the preceding : to be distinguished from  the  Use  Default
              Values  expansion.   If  length  evaluates to a number less than
              zero, and parameter is not @ and not an indexed  or  associative
              array,  it is interpreted as an offset from the end of the value
              of parameter rather than a number of characters, and the  expan‐
              sion is the characters between the two offsets.  If parameter is
              @, the result is length positional parameters beginning at  off‐
              set.   If parameter is an indexed array name subscripted by @ or
              *, the result is the length members of the array beginning  with
              ${parameter[offset]}.   A  negative  offset is taken relative to
              one greater than the maximum index of the specified array.  Sub‐
              string  expansion applied to an associative array produces unde‐
              fined results.  Note that a negative offset  must  be  separated
              from  the  colon  by  at least one space to avoid being confused
              with the :- expansion.  Substring indexing is zero-based  unless
              the  positional  parameters are used, in which case the indexing
              starts at 1 by default.  If offset  is  0,  and  the  positional
              parameters are used, $0 is prefixed to the list.

Aleksandr Levchuk ,Aug 29, 2011 at 5:51

Building on jor's answer (which doesn't work for me):

substring=$(expr "$filename" : '.*_\([^_]*\)_.*')

kayn ,Oct 5, 2015 at 8:48

I'm surprised this pure bash solution didn't come up:

a="someletters_12345_moreleters.ext"
IFS="_"
set $a
echo $2
# prints 12345

You probably want to reset IFS to what value it was before, or unset IFS afterwards!

zebediah49 ,Jun 4 at 17:31

Here's how i'd do it:

FN=someletters_12345_moreleters.ext
[[ ${FN} =~ _([[:digit:]]{5})_ ]] && NUM=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}

Note: the above is a regular expression and is restricted to your specific scenario of five digits surrounded by underscores. Change the regular expression if you need different matching.

TranslucentCloud ,Jun 16, 2014 at 13:27

Following the requirements

I have a filename with x number of characters then a five digit sequence surrounded by a single underscore on either side then another set of x number of characters. I want to take the 5 digit number and put that into a variable.

I found some grep ways that may be useful:

$ echo "someletters_12345_moreleters.ext" | grep -Eo "[[:digit:]]+" 
12345

or better

$ echo "someletters_12345_moreleters.ext" | grep -Eo "[[:digit:]]{5}" 
12345

And then with -Po syntax:

$ echo "someletters_12345_moreleters.ext" | grep -Po '(?<=_)\d+' 
12345

Or if you want to make it fit exactly 5 characters:

$ echo "someletters_12345_moreleters.ext" | grep -Po '(?<=_)\d{5}' 
12345

Finally, to make it be stored in a variable it is just need to use the var=$(command) syntax.

Darron ,Jan 9, 2009 at 16:13

Without any sub-processes you can:

shopt -s extglob
front=${input%%_+([a-zA-Z]).*}
digits=${front##+([a-zA-Z])_}

A very small variant of this will also work in ksh93.

user2350426

add a comment ,Aug 5, 2014 at 8:11

If we focus in the concept of:
"A run of (one or several) digits"

We could use several external tools to extract the numbers.
We could quite easily erase all other characters, either sed or tr:

name='someletters_12345_moreleters.ext'

echo $name | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'    # 12345
echo $name | tr -c -d 0-9          # 12345

But if $name contains several runs of numbers, the above will fail:

If "name=someletters_12345_moreleters_323_end.ext", then:

echo $name | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'    # 12345323
echo $name | tr -c -d 0-9          # 12345323

We need to use regular expresions (regex).
To select only the first run (12345 not 323) in sed and perl:

echo $name | sed 's/[^0-9]*\([0-9]\{1,\}\).*$/\1/'
perl -e 'my $name='$name';my ($num)=$name=~/(\d+)/;print "$num\n";'

But we could as well do it directly in bash ⁽¹⁾ :

regex=[^0-9]*([0-9]{1,}).*$; \
[[ $name =~ $regex ]] && echo ${BASH_REMATCH[1]}

This allows us to extract the FIRST run of digits of any length
surrounded by any other text/characters.

Note : regex=[^0-9]*([0-9]{5,5}).*$; will match only exactly 5 digit runs. :-)

⁽¹⁾ : faster than calling an external tool for each short texts. Not faster than doing all processing inside sed or awk for large files.

codist ,May 6, 2011 at 12:50

Here's a prefix-suffix solution (similar to the solutions given by JB and Darron) that matches the first block of digits and does not depend on the surrounding underscores:

str='someletters_12345_morele34ters.ext'
s1="${str#"${str%%[[:digit:]]*}"}"   # strip off non-digit prefix from str
s2="${s1%%[^[:digit:]]*}"            # strip off non-digit suffix from s1
echo "$s2"                           # 12345

Campa ,Oct 21, 2016 at 8:12

I love sed 's capability to deal with regex groups:

> var="someletters_12345_moreletters.ext"
> digits=$( echo $var | sed "s/.*_\([0-9]\+\).*/\1/p" -n )
> echo $digits
12345

A slightly more general option would be not to assume that you have an underscore _ marking the start of your digits sequence, hence for instance stripping off all non-numbers you get before your sequence: s/[^0-9]\+\([0-9]\+\).*/\1/p .

---

> man sed | grep s/regexp/replacement -A 2
s/regexp/replacement/
    Attempt to match regexp against the pattern space.  If successful, replace that portion matched with replacement.  The replacement may contain the special  character  &  to
    refer to that portion of the pattern space which matched, and the special escapes \1 through \9 to refer to the corresponding matching sub-expressions in the regexp.

---

More on this, in case you're not too confident with regexps:

• s is for _s_ubstitute
• [0-9]+ matches 1+ digits
• \1 links to the group n.1 of the regex output (group 0 is the whole match, group 1 is the match within parentheses in this case)
• p flag is for _p_rinting

All escapes \ are there to make sed 's regexp processing work.

Dan Dascalescu ,May 8 at 18:28

Given test.txt is a file containing "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

cut -b19-20 test.txt > test1.txt # This will extract chars 19 & 20 "ST" 
while read -r; do;
> x=$REPLY
> done < test1.txt
echo $x
ST

Alex Raj Kaliamoorthy ,Jul 29, 2016 at 7:41

My answer will have more control on what you want out of your string. Here is the code on how you can extract 12345 out of your string

str="someletters_12345_moreleters.ext"
str=${str#*_}
str=${str%_more*}
echo $str

This will be more efficient if you want to extract something that has any chars like abc or any special characters like _ or - . For example: If your string is like this and you want everything that is after someletters_ and before _moreleters.ext :

str="someletters_123-45-24a&13b-1_moreleters.ext"

With my code you can mention what exactly you want. Explanation:

#* It will remove the preceding string including the matching key. Here the key we mentioned is _ % It will remove the following string including the matching key. Here the key we mentioned is '_more*'

Do some experiments yourself and you would find this interesting.

Dan Dascalescu ,May 8 at 18:27

similar to substr('abcdefg', 2-1, 3) in php:

echo 'abcdefg'|tail -c +2|head -c 3

olibre ,Nov 25, 2015 at 14:50

Ok, here goes pure Parameter Substitution with an empty string. Caveat is that I have defined someletters and moreletters as only characters. If they are alphanumeric, this will not work as it is.

filename=someletters_12345_moreletters.ext
substring=${filename//@(+([a-z])_|_+([a-z]).*)}
echo $substring
12345

gniourf_gniourf ,Jun 4 at 17:33

There's also the bash builtin 'expr' command:

INPUT="someletters_12345_moreleters.ext"  
SUBSTRING=`expr match "$INPUT" '.*_\([[:digit:]]*\)_.*' `  
echo $SUBSTRING

russell ,Aug 1, 2013 at 8:12

A little late, but I just ran across this problem and found the following:

host:/tmp$ asd=someletters_12345_moreleters.ext 
host:/tmp$ echo `expr $asd : '.*_\(.*\)_'`
12345
host:/tmp$

I used it to get millisecond resolution on an embedded system that does not have %N for date:

set `grep "now at" /proc/timer_list`
nano=$3
fraction=`expr $nano : '.*\(...\)......'`
$debug nano is $nano, fraction is $fraction

> ,Aug 5, 2018 at 17:13

A bash solution:

IFS="_" read -r x digs x <<<'someletters_12345_moreleters.ext'

This will clobber a variable called x . The var x could be changed to the var _ .

input='someletters_12345_moreleters.ext'
IFS="_" read -r _ digs _ <<<"$input"

[Sep 11, 2019] string - Extract substring in Bash - Stack Overflow

${parameter:offset} ${parameter:offset:length}

Substring Expansion. Expands to up to length characters of parameter starting at the character specified by offset. If length is omitted, expands to the substring of parameter starting at the character specified by offset. length and offset are arithmetic expressions (see ARITHMETIC EVALUATION below). If offset evaluates to a number less than zero, the value is used as an offset from the end of the value of parameter.

Arithmetic expressions starting with a - must be separated by whitespace from the preceding : to be distinguished from the Use Default Values expansion.

If length evaluates to a number less than zero, and parameter is not @ and not an indexed or associative array, it is interpreted as an offset from the end of the value of parameter rather than a number of characters, and the expansion is the characters between the two offsets.

If parameter is @, the result is length positional parameters beginning at offset.

If parameter is an indexed array name subscripted by @ or *, the result is the length members of the array beginning with ${parameter[offset]}.

A negative offset is taken relative to one greater than the maximum index of the specified array.

Substring expansion applied to an associative array produces unde‐ fined results. Note that a negative offset must be separated from the colon by at least one space to avoid being confused with the :- expansion.

Substring indexing is zero-based unless the positional parameters are used, in which case the indexing starts at 1 by default. If offset is 0, and the positional parameters are used, $0 is prefixed to the list.

edited Jan 22 '16 at 15:16

answered May 31 '13 at 15:00

jperellijperelli

4,78444 gold badges3838 silver badges7474 bronze badges

• 1

  A very important caveat with negative values as stated above: Arithmetic expressions starting with a - must be separated by whitespace from the preceding : to be distinguished from the Use Default Values expansion. So to get last four characters of a var: ${var: -4} – sshow Jul 27 '17 at 17:22

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