How to check if a string contains a substring in Bash

Question

I have a string in Bash:

string=\"My string\"

How can I test if it contains another string?

if [ $string ?? \'foo\' ]; then         


        

Answer 1

This also works:

if printf -- '%s' "$haystack" | egrep -q -- "$needle"
then
  printf "Found needle in haystack"
fi

And the negative test is:

if ! printf -- '%s' "$haystack" | egrep -q -- "$needle"
then
  echo "Did not find needle in haystack"
fi

I suppose this style is a bit more classic -- less dependent upon features of Bash shell.

The -- argument is pure POSIX paranoia, used to protected against input strings similar to options, such as --abc or -a.

Note: In a tight loop this code will be much slower than using internal Bash shell features, as one (or two) separate processes will be created and connected via pipes.

Answer 2

Since the POSIX/BusyBox question is closed without providing the right answer (IMHO), I'll post an answer here.

The shortest possible answer is:

[ ${_string_##*$_substring_*} ] || echo Substring found!

or

[ "${_string_##*$_substring_*}" ] || echo 'Substring found!'

Note that the double hash is obligatory with some shells (ash). Above will evaluate [ stringvalue ] when the substring is not found. It returns no error. When the substring is found the result is empty and it evaluates [ ]. This will throw error code 1 since the string is completely substituted (due to *).

The shortest more common syntax:

[ -z "${_string_##*$_substring_*}" ] && echo 'Substring found!'

or

[ -n "${_string_##*$_substring_*}" ] || echo 'Substring found!'

Another one:

[ "${_string_##$_substring_}" != "$_string_" ] && echo 'Substring found!'

or

[ "${_string_##$_substring_}" = "$_string_" ] || echo 'Substring found!'

Note the single equal sign!

Answer 3

The generic needle haystack example is following with variables

#!/bin/bash

needle="a_needle"
haystack="a_needle another_needle a_third_needle"
if [[ $haystack == *"$needle"* ]]; then
    echo "needle found"
else
    echo "needle NOT found"
fi

Answer 4

[[ $string == *foo* ]] && echo "It's there" || echo "Couldn't find"

Answer 5

Try oobash.

It is an OO-style string library for Bash 4. It has support for German umlauts. It is written in Bash.

Many functions are available: -base64Decode, -base64Encode, -capitalize, -center, -charAt, -concat, -contains, -count, -endsWith, -equals, -equalsIgnoreCase, -reverse, -hashCode, -indexOf, -isAlnum, -isAlpha, -isAscii, -isDigit, -isEmpty, -isHexDigit, -isLowerCase, -isSpace, -isPrintable, -isUpperCase, -isVisible, -lastIndexOf, -length, -matches, -replaceAll, -replaceFirst, -startsWith, -substring, -swapCase, -toLowerCase, -toString, -toUpperCase, -trim, and -zfill.

Look at the contains example:

[Desktop]$ String a testXccc
[Desktop]$ a.contains tX
true
[Desktop]$ a.contains XtX
false

oobash is available at Sourceforge.net.

Answer 6

How about this:

text="   <tag>bmnmn</tag>  "
if [[ "$text" =~ "<tag>" ]]; then
   echo "matched"
else
   echo "not matched"
fi