[plug] string manipulation

[Bruce M. Axtens]

I could suggest a Tcl version, but every time I mention Tcl at PLUG 
meetings, some people start making regurgitation noises.

Bruce.


On Saturday, April 22, 2006, at 03:26  PM, Bernd Felsche wrote:

> Craig Dyke <grail at westnet.com.au> writes:
>
>> I am looking for two answers here:
>
>> 1. Is there a better way than what I will show below?
>
> There is always a better way. It's in the decimation of the baked
> confection.
>
>> 2. How is what I am doing wrong as I have to split operation into two
>> (will show what I mean)?
>
>> Currently:
>
>> I have written a script which uses find to set a variable --> 
>> var=`find
>> / -name $what_i_am_looking_for`
>
> This find may set sveral results into the same variable: A list.
>
>> The what_i_am_looking_for variable is et earlier and is the name of a
>> directory on my system.
>
>> My task is to set a new variable equal to the name of the parent
>> directory to what I have found.
>
>> This is what works at the mo:   temp=${what_i_am_looking_for%/*}
>>                                              newVar=${temp##*/}
>
>> What I was trying to do was combine both:
>> newVar=${${what_i_am_looking_for%/*}##*/}
>
> Try a nested dirname. That'll also work if the file is in the root
> directory.
>
> for ff in $var ; do
>   parent=`dirname \`dirname $ff\``
>   # do stuff in the $parent
> done
>
> Your bashrc probably contains a (debugged) function definiton for
> "dirname" so it won't fork as often as it would for these things.
> If you feel like it, define your own say "parentname" function,
> building on "dirname" so that you won't have to use the "ugly"
> escape above.
> -- 
> /"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
> \ /  ASCII ribbon campaign | "Laws do not persuade just because
>  X   against HTML mail     |  they threaten."
> / \  and postings          | Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.
>
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