I'm doing the following command in a bash:
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' | sed -rn 's#^URL: \^/tags/([^/]+)/#\1#p'
I think this should output only the matching lines and the content of the capture group. So I'm expecting 0.0.0 as the result. But I'm getting 0.0.0abcd
Why contains the capture group parts from the left and the right side of the /? What I am doing wrong?
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' |
sed -rn 's#^URL: \^/tags/([^/]+)/#\1#p'
echo outputs two lines:
UNUSED
URL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd
The regular expression given to sed does not match the first line, so this line is not printed. The regular expression matches the second line, so URL: ^/tags/0.0.0/ is replaced with 0.0.0; only the matched part of the line is replaced, so abcd is passed unchanged.
To obtain the desired output you must also match abcd, for example with
sed -rn 's#^URL: \^/tags/([^/]+)/.*#\1#p'
where the .* eats all characters to the end of the line.
You can use awk:
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' | awk -F/ 'index($0, "^/tags/"){print $3}'
0.0.0
This awk command uses / as field delimiter and prints 3rd column when there ^/tags/ text in input.
Alternatively, you can use gnu grep:
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' | grep -oP '^URL: \^/tags/\K([^/]+)'
0.0.0
Or this sed:
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' | sed -nE 's~^URL: \^/tags/([^/]+).*~\1~p'
0.0.0
This sed catch your desired output.
echo -e 'UNUSED\nURL: ^/tags/0.0.0/abcd' | sed -E '/URL/!d;s#.*/(.*)/[^/]*#\1#'
