how do I extract a full path out of a string in bash

Question

Say I have the following string in a bash script

"stuff qrg eqrhqe stuff wthwr /this/is/a/full/path/to/a/fils.txt sadf ergwqe"

How can I extract /this/is/a/full/path/to/a/fils.txt from this string in a bash script.

Knowing that:

the extension of the file can change
It might be a directory (so no .ext)
the should be only one "path" in this string to look for

IMHO, it would be easier to start thinking what would be there in common in the strings you would like to extract. — Zumo de Vidrio
– Zumo de Vidrio, Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 10:40
@Inian I remove before / with sed then tr on ` ` but I look for something authoritative — statquant
– statquant, Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 10:42

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-15 10:46:07Z

1

You can try this grep -o:

str="stuff qrg eqrhqe stuff wthwr /this/is/a/full/path/to/a/fils.txt sadf ergwqe"
grep -o '/[^[:blank:]]*' <<< "$str" | head -1
/this/is/a/full/path/to/a/fils.txt

head -1 is to ensure we display only first path starting with a /

answered Mar 15, 2017 at 10:46

anubhava

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4 Comments

statquant Over a year ago

what is <<< and why not grep -o regexp "$str" ?

anubhava Over a year ago

<<< is called here-string, it feeds input as a string to grep comman

statquant Over a year ago

what's the advantage over grep -o regexp "$str" ?

anubhava Over a year ago

grep will consider $str a file in that case.

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