"Doyle, Patrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Have you tried this with your shell? > >substring=${bigstring:0,2} > > >${parameter:offset} >${parameter:offset:length} >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 section 6.5 Shell Arithmetic). This is >referred to as Substring Expansion.
What shell are you using? This does not work in Bourne, C, Korn or Bourne Again shell as far as I can tell. - seb