get sub string in shell script

Question

if I have a string like some/unknown/amount/of/sub/folder/file.txt how can I get only the the file.txt sub string, remove the front part, while the length is unknown.

thank you

EDIT: file name could be any length, and sub folders could be any levels.

uh...I'm not sure, GNU bash?? is that what you are asking? o.O!! — derrdji
– derrdji, Commented Jul 30, 2009 at 19:51

Stefano Borini · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-30 19:48:40Z

13

$ basename "some/unknown/amount/of/sub/folder/file.txt"
file.txt

To generically extract a substring, you can use this syntax

$ hello="abcdef"
$ echo ${hello:1:3}
bcd

answered Jul 30, 2009 at 19:48

Stefano Borini

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Comments

William Pursell · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-30 20:16:30Z

5

While I agree that the correct answer is to invoke basename, in bash you can also use ## to delete the longest occurrence of a string from the start of a variable.

bash-3.2$ t=/this/is/a/path
bash-3.2$ echo ${t##*/}
path

answered Jul 30, 2009 at 20:16

William Pursell

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Comments

Matthew Flaschen · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-30 19:48:22Z

4

Use basename command:

orig_path="some/unknown/amount/of/sub/folder/file.txt"
last_comp=$(basename $orig_path)
echo $last_comp

answered Jul 30, 2009 at 19:48

Matthew Flaschen

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Oleksandr Tymoshenko · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-30 19:48:52Z

4

basename some/unknown/amount/of/sub/folder/file.txt

answered Jul 30, 2009 at 19:48

Oleksandr Tymoshenko

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