[Wylug-help] Shell scripting

[Jim Jackson]

On Sun, 9 May 2004, Nick Jeffery wrote:

> Hullo,
>
> I've a variable (from cat'ing a file) in a bash shell script.  I'd like to
> get only the first 32 characters of the file/variable on their own..
>
> I've tried:
>
> foo=`echo ${bar:32}`  but that doesn't seem to want to play ball.
>
> Anyone got an idea?  Don't want to use regexps/perl/awk if at all possible.
>

from the bash manual page.....

${parameter:offset:length}

so ${bar:0:32}  does it.