On Sat, 9 Apr 2011 06:31:28 -0700 (PDT), Dino Vliet <dino_vl...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi folks, > I'm having trouble with a little shell script. Can somebody > explain me why I get 3 times "expr: syntax error" in my > console after I run this little script? > > #! /usr/local/bin/bash > # testscript > > var1="trees.J48" #other value will be rules.Jrip, rules.DecisionTable > len=${#var1} > ind=`expr index $var1 s` > pos=`expr $len - $ind` > out=`expr substr $var1 $ind $pos` > > I would expect (and want the following to happen): > > $ind should contain 6 > $pos should contain 3 > $out should contain J48 (other values will have to be Jrip,DecisionTable) > > Can anyone help me with this?
The explaination is quite simple: expr doesn't know "index" or "substr"; see "man expr" for details. A polite sidenote: Unless you have a good reason to code in bash-specific manner, do NOT #!/usr/local/bin/bash, as this is NOT portable (if this is one of your goals); use the standard #!/bin/sh instead. Depending on what you have in mind, maybe mentioning the strengths of perl, sed and awk is worth being mentioned. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"