Question

I’m looking at files that all have a different version number that starts at column 18 of line 7.

What’s the best way with Bash to read (into a $variable) the string on line 7, from column, i.e. “character,” 18 to the end of the line? What about to the 5th to last character of the line?

Answer 1

sed way:

variable=$(sed -n '7s/^.\{17\}//p' file)

EDIT (thanks to commenters): If by columns you mean fields (separated with tabs or spaces), the command can be changed to

variable=$(sed -n '7s/^\(\s\+\S\+\)\{17\}//p' file)