Nth word in a string variable
BashBash Problem Overview
In Bash, I want to get the Nth word of a string hold by a variable.
For instance:
STRING="one two three four"
N=3
Result:
"three"
What Bash command/script could do this?
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
echo $STRING | cut -d " " -f $N
Solution 2 - Bash
An alternative
N=3
STRING="one two three four"
arr=($STRING)
echo ${arr[N-1]}
Solution 3 - Bash
Using awk
echo $STRING | awk -v N=$N '{print $N}'
Test
% N=3
% STRING="one two three four"
% echo $STRING | awk -v N=$N '{print $N}'
three
Solution 4 - Bash
A file containing some statements:
cat test.txt
Result:
This is the 1st Statement
This is the 2nd Statement
This is the 3rd Statement
This is the 4th Statement
This is the 5th Statement
So, to print the 4th word of this statement type:
awk '{print $4}' test.txt
Output:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Solution 5 - Bash
No expensive forks, no pipes, no bashisms:
$ set -- $STRING
$ eval echo \${$N}
three
Or, if you want to avoid eval,
$ set -- $STRING
$ shift $((N-1))
$ echo $1
three
But beware of globbing (use set -f to turn off filename globbing).
Solution 6 - Bash
STRING=(one two three four)
echo "${STRING[n]}"