I have written the following lines to get the last character of a string:
str=$1
i=$((${#str}-1))
echo ${str:$i:1}
It works for abcd/
:
$ bash last_ch.sh abcd/
/
It does not work for abcd*
:
$ bash last_ch.sh abcd*
array.sh assign.sh date.sh dict.sh full_path.sh last_ch.sh
It lists the files in the current folder.
That's one of the reasons why you need to quote your variables:
echo "${str:$i:1}"
Otherwise, bash expands the variable and in this case does globbing before printing out. It is also better to quote the parameter to the script (in case you have a matching filename):
sh lash_ch.sh 'abcde*'
Also see the order of expansions in the bash reference manual. Variables are expanded before the filename expansion.
To get the last character you should just use -1
as the index since the negative indices count from the end of the string:
echo "${str: -1}"
NOTE: The space after the colon (:) is required!
This approach will not work without the space.
Per @perreal, quoting variables is important, but because I read this post like 5 times before finding a simpler approach to the question at hand in the comments...
str='abcd/'
echo "${str: -1}"
Output: /
str='abcd*'
echo "${str: -1}"
Output: *
Thanks to everyone who participated in this above; I've appropriately added +1's throughout the thread!
I know this is a very old thread, but no one mentioned which to me is the cleanest answer:
echo -n $str | tail -c 1
Note the -n
is just so the echo doesn't include a newline at the end.
Single line:
${str:${#str}-1:1}
Now:
echo "${str:${#str}-1:1}"
Every answer so far implies the word "shell" in the question equates to Bash.
This is how one could do that in a standard Bourne shell:
printf $str | tail -c 1
Try:
"${str:$((${#str}-1)):1}"
For e.g.:
someone@mypc:~$ str="A random string*"; echo "$str"
A random string*
someone@mypc:~$ echo "${str:$((${#str}-1)):1}"
*
someone@mypc:~$ echo "${str:$((${#str}-2)):1}"
g
another solution using awk script:
last 1 char:
echo $str | awk '{print substr($0,length,1)}'
last 5 chars:
echo $str | awk '{print substr($0,length-5,5)}'
echo $str | cut -c $((${#str}))
is a good approach