How to remove some character from a string in Unix?

Question

I have two string like this
a=[2018:09:11-18:37:06:376476]
b=[2018:09:11-18:37:06:376446]
I want two string like
a= 20180911183706376476
b= 20180911183706376446

Can Anyone please help me out?

Answer 1

If your shell supports "//" substitutions in variables you can use

a=${a//[]:[-]/}

(notice that "-" should be last and "]" should be first in the [...] range expression.

If not, you can use something like this:

set_trim(){ local IFS=[:-]; v=$1; set -- $2; IFS=; eval "$v=$*"; }
set_trim a "$a"
set_trim b "$b"

or, with sed (less efficient since it has to start an external program):

a=`echo $a | sed 's/[]:[-]//g'`