Jerry Geis wrote: > I am trying to use cut to tell me the suffix of a file. > for example: echo /home/silentm/log/file.machine.log | cut -d . -f 1- > > I was expecting to get .log or log but I get the entire string echoed back. > > doing the opposite gave me what I expected: > echo /home/silentm/log/file.machine.log | cut -d . -f 1 > gives me > /home/silentm/log/file > > I am trying to find a way to test if the file ends in .log? Awk will do it: # echo /home/silentm/log/file.machine.log | awk -F. '{print $NF}' log The benefit of awk is that you don't have to know how many dots are in the file. $NF just prints the last one. -Mark -- Mark Belanger LTX Corporation