Jakub Narębski <jnareb@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > Why use expr and not POSIX shell parameter substitution? > > BASE=${MERGED%.*} > ext=.${MERGED##*.} > > Or something like that... Because they are insufficient. See David's illustrations for how. Parameter expansion (e.g. ${parameter%word}) is fine for the simplest cases (e.g. you know there is .c suffix to the $string and want to strip it out) but not sufficient for other cases (e.g. you may not even know if there is any suffix). You can deconstruct your regexps manually and use conditional if/else/fi if you are unable to use expr, but I do not see how it buys us anything. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html