percent symbol in Bash, what's it used for? [duplicate]

Question

I have a filename which ends with .zip and I wanted just the filename without zip. Here I found a trick in bash.

$f="05 - Means-End Analysis Videos.zip"
$echo "${f%*.zip}"
05 - Means-End Analysis Videos

What is happening here? How come %*.zip is removing my extension?

Skald

gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/… Third section from bottom. – Mazard

Have a look here bash manipulating with strings percent sign – Towill

Also, the * is superfluous (always matches nothing when used after single %). – Mazard

note that another usage of the % character in bash is if a program such as vim is suspended with ctrl-z, then the %vim command resumes it, like fg. – Steeplejack

As already noted in another comment, the * does not make much sense. The snippet "${f%*.zip}" means keep the content of f, but remove the last occurrence of .zip. * ~ * ~ * So in "05 - Means-End Analysis Videos.zip" simply cut out .zip to get "05 - Means-End Analysis Videos". – Enhanced

Answer 1

Delete the shortest match of string in $var from the beginning:

${var#string}

Delete the longest match of string in $var from the beginning:

${var##string}

Delete the shortest match of string in $var from the end:

${var%string}

Delete the longest match of string in $var from the end:

${var%%string}

Try:

var=foobarbar
echo "${var%b*r}"
> foobar
echo "${var%%b*r}"
> foo

Shampoo

This answer is fine, although any interested reader coming here may want to compare it with this answer (which is slightly more elaborated I would say). – Enhanced