number in string to find char in that string UNIX

Question

I have a string that contains a word and a number, like this:

\"6 ovenbread\"

How can I read the number (let\'s call it i) and fin

Answer 1

I think awk is easier, it has substr function, allows you to pick the n-th letter.

awk '{print substr($2,$1,1)}'

with your data:

kent$ echo "6 ovenbread"|awk '{print substr($2,$1,1)}'
r

Answer 2

No, you can't do that in sed, but it's easy enough in Awk.

awk '{ print substr($2,$1,1) }' file