How to split a string in shell and get the last field

Question

Suppose I have the string 1:2:3:4:5 and I want to get its last field (5 in this case). How do I do that using Bash? I tried cut, but I

Answer 1

If you like python and have an option to install a package, you can use this python utility.

# install pythonp
pythonp -m pip install pythonp

echo "1:2:3:4:5" | pythonp "l.split(':')[-1]"
5

Answer 2

for x in `echo $str | tr ";" "\n"`; do echo $x; done

Answer 3

A solution using the read builtin:

IFS=':' read -a fields <<< "1:2:3:4:5"
echo "${fields[4]}"

Or, to make it more generic:

echo "${fields[-1]}" # prints the last item

Answer 4

One way:

var1="1:2:3:4:5"
var2=${var1##*:}

Another, using an array:

var1="1:2:3:4:5"
saveIFS=$IFS
IFS=":"
var2=($var1)
IFS=$saveIFS
var2=${var2[@]: -1}

Yet another with an array:

var1="1:2:3:4:5"
saveIFS=$IFS
IFS=":"
var2=($var1)
IFS=$saveIFS
count=${#var2[@]}
var2=${var2[$count-1]}

Using Bash (version >= 3.2) regular expressions:

var1="1:2:3:4:5"
[[ $var1 =~ :([^:]*)$ ]]
var2=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}