how to get string between two strings

Question

so for example, I have a string like this:

f=awerawet1351&q=aet12462awera&l=3ewar462&h=awiejt361

and I wanna grab the substring between "q=" and "&", which is "aet12462awera" or "q=aet12462awera" is also fine. I tried to useawk -F'&' , but the thing is, the position for "q="string is not fixed. Sometimes, I will have

f= .... & l=.... &q=....& h=....

so I can't use awk -F'&' '{print $2}' to get the result.

Is there anyway for me to use unix command to get it? Thanks!

`grep -oP '(?<=(?|&)q=)[^&]*' <<< "?$querystring"` – anishsane Jul 20 '15 at 04:54 — anishsane, Jul 20 '15 at 04:54

nando · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-20T01:30:42.863

1

This seems to work:

STRING='f=awerawet1351&q=aet12462awera&l=3ewar462&h=awiejt361'
echo $STRING | awk -F"q=" '{print $2}' | cut -f1 -d"&"

edited Jul 20 '15 at 01:30

answered Jul 20 '15 at 01:18

nando

501
5
6

Yes! It did the trick! Though I am still wondering that if this the most efficient way? – jxymixer Jul 21 '15 at 13:08

jvdm · Answer 2 · 2015-07-20T00:18:18.793

0

string='f=awerawet1351&q=aet12462awera&l=3ewar462&h=awiejt361'
IFS='&'
for field in $string; do
    if [ "${field%=*}" = "q" ]; then
        echo ${field#*=}
    fi
done

Look at parameter expansion and IFS.

edited Jul 20 '15 at 00:18

answered Jul 19 '15 at 23:59

jvdm

846
6
22

how to get string between two strings

2 Answers2