Question

I’m looking to fetch a value after a match in a string.
Lets say I have two string:

string1="Name: John Doe Age: 28 City: Oklahoma City"
string2="Name: Jane Age: 29 Years City: Boston"

Now I want to set three parameters: Name, Age and City.
If I were to do:

name=$(echo "$string1" | awk '{ print $2 $3 }')
city=$(echo "$string1" | awk '{ print $5 }')
city=$(echo "$string1" | awk '{ print $8 $9 }

It would work for string1, but obviously not for string2.
After some googling I believe I should put it in some kind of array, but I do not really know how to proceed.

Basically, I want everything after Name: and before Age: to be parameter $name. Everything between Age: and City: to be $age, and so on.

Best regards

Answer 1

Needs bash version 3 or higher:

if [[ $string1 =~ ^Name:\ (.*)\ Age:\ (.*)\ City:\ (.*) ]] ; then
    name=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
    age=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
    city=${BASH_REMATCH[3]}
fi

You might need Age:\ ([0-9]*).*\ City: if you do not want “Years” to be included in $years.