Picking out the right file when ls | greping

[XST1]

I'm writing a script where I have to use ls | grep and search for a file in the current directory. I am assigning the name of this file to a variable so it needs to be precise. My only problem is that the file that I am grepping for has a brother which happens to have a different extension. I want to pick out the right file and send it to the variable.

Heres an example just to clarify:

I am in /home/m/temp

in the script I say:

a=`ls | grep myFile`

the value now stored in a is: myFile.exe myfFile.dll

I only want to store myFile.exe

How would I do this? Thanks.

[hollerith]

use 'sed' and 'cut'

[oberyno]

Is there any reason why you can't do a test? The following would test if both myfile.dll and myfile.exe exist. If both exist, then set $a to myfile.exe.

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[[ -e myfile.dll && -e myfile.exe ]] && a=myfile.exe

[BitJam]

I think you need to provide more information in order to precisely define the problem that you want solved. Are you always looking for a specific extension or always trying to ignore a specific extension? Also, it is not clear if you want to script the strip off the extension or leave it on. Let's say you are looking for a file named "dum.exe" and want to end up with the name "dum". This code should work:

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file=`ls *.exe | grep dum`
echo file is ${file%%.exe}

[XST1]

say I had "myfile.exe" stored in $a. How would I delete only the ".exe" part of it (without the quotes)?

[lookinin]

This is basically the same as what BitJam said, but doesn't care what the extention actually is.

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echo ${a%%.*}

Additionally, if you $a contains "myfile.exe.exe", this would return "myfile.exe", as it only works on the last ".":

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echo ${a%.*}