Syntax error expr

Question

Why does the following returning a syntax error:

stringZ=abcABC123ABCabc
echo `expr match "$stringZ" 'abc[A-Z]*.2'`

This works on my ubuntu machine but when I try it on my mac running OS X 10.9.4 I get expr: syntax error?

Have you tried using `echo $(expr match "$stringZ" 'abc[A-Z]*.2')`? — Tom Fenech, Aug 30 '14 at 23:04

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 30 '14 at 23:08

5

This seems like a bash version difference. The : syntax works on my OSX 10.9.4 machine (which has bash 3.2.51, not very current):

echo `expr "$stringZ" : 'abc[A-Z]*.2'`

answered Aug 30 '14 at 23:08

Wm Annis

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4

1

Online documentation: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/expr.1.html – glenn jackman Aug 30 '14 at 23:11

Tom Fenech · Answer 2 · 2014-08-31T08:29:59.930

expr is quite old-fashioned. On newer bash you may prefer to use the more modern regular expression syntax:

re='abc[A-Z]*.2'
[[ $stringZ =~ $re ]] && echo ${#BASH_REMATCH}

The =~ operator is available since bash version 3.0. For maximum compatibility across older versions of bash, it is recommended to store the pattern to be matched in a separate variable and expand it without quotes. Successful matches are stored in the BASH_REMATCH array. If capturing groups are used, each group will be stored as a separate element in the array.

Syntax error expr

2 Answers2