Question

I know how to remove the extension of a file, when I know it as:

nameis=$(basename $dataset .csv)

but I want to remove any extension without knowing it beforehand, anyone know how to do this?

Any help appreciated,
Ted

Answer 1

In bash you can do the following:

nameis=${dataset%.*}

… e.g.:

$ dataset=foo.txt
$ nameis=${dataset%.*}
$ echo $nameis
foo

This syntax is described in the bash man page as:

${parameter%word}

${parameter%%word}

Remove matching suffix pattern. The word is expanded to produce a pattern just as in pathname expansion. If the pattern matches a trailing portion of the expanded value of parameter, then the result of the expansion is the expanded value of parameter with the shortest matching pattern (the "%" case) or the longest matching pattern (the "%%" case) deleted. If parameter is @ or *, the pattern removal operation is applied to each positional parameter in turn, and the expansion is the resultant list. If parameter is an array variable subscripted with @ or *, the pattern removal operation is applied to each member of the array in turn, and the expansion is the resultant list.