You can use standard UNIX/Linux rm command.All you have to do is instruct the rm command not to follow end of command line flags by passing double dash --option before -foo file name. "apal". Accidentally, I had created a file called -foo.Now, how do I remove a file with a name starting with ‘-‘ under UNIX-like or Linux operating system? In both instances, the character after # is a tab. bash check if string ends with character. It mostly depends on the rest of the script or the collection, the coding style and your personal preference. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 7 '16 at 11:19 In general regex are considered slower than glob patterns but I haven't done any serious benchmarking myself. shell script to check whether a character is alphabet digit or special character. As with all in bash, there is no good or bad solution when it comes to checking if a string contains certain characters or substrings. I need to grep all strings that start with "[" and finish with a certain string, e.g. You can also check our guide about string concatenation. That is, change "^" and "$" from matching the start or end of line only at the left and right ends of the string to matching them anywhere within the string. In my bash script, I want to check whether a string starts with # modified: or # new file:. One can test that a bash variable starts with a string or character in bash efficiently using any one of the following methods. After reading this tutorial, you should have a good understanding of how to compare strings in Bash. ^ causes the RE to match from the start (as opposed to matching anywhere in the line). I am a new Unix shell user at my university shell server. I've been dinking around with - – anubhava Apr 7 '16 at 11:20 Need to check for "special characters" in string before splitting the file. Seen together: Awk will match a regular expression with "Linux" at the start of the first column. The return value is 0 if the string matches the pattern, and 1 otherwise. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. Comparing string is one of the most basic and frequently used operations in Bash scripting. shell script to check if string contains vowels. Expands to up to length characters of parameter starting at the character specified by offset. m: Treat string as multiple lines. to match any character whatsoever, even a … BTW, do you know what is more efficient in Bash: globs or regexes? How to check if a string begins with some value in bash. From the Bash man page: ${parameter:offset} ${parameter:offset:length} Substring Expansion. That is, change "." From the bash man page: An additional binary operator, =~, is available, with the same precedence as == and!=.When it is used, the string to the right of the operator is considered an extended regular expression and matched accordingly (as in regex(3)). Let us define a shell variable called vech as follows: In both instances, the character after # is a tab. In the latter instance, the character between "new" and "file" is a space. shell script to check whether a character is vowel or consonant. Check string only contains numbers. So all chars in between these 2 chars would be shown as well. s: Treat string as single line. If length is omitted, expands to the substring of parameter start- ing at the character specified by offset. Within the RE is the string Linux and the special character ^. Introduction – In bash, we can check if a string begins with some value using regex comparison operator =~. bash check if string starts with character. 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