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Checking the last character of a string

Is there a built-in POSIX equivalent for this bashism?

my_string="Here is a string"
last_character=${my_string: -1}

I keep seeing things like this recommended, but they seem like hacks.

last_character=$(echo -n "$my_string" | tail -c 1)
last_character=$(echo -n "$my_string" | grep -o ".$")

But maybe a hack is all we have with POSIX wrappers?

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3 answers


If you really should only be doing this POSIX:

my_string="Here is a string"
last_character=${my_string#"${my_string%?}"}


What it does is essentially remove $my_string

without the last character from the beginning $my_string

, leaving you with only the last character.

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num=`echo $my_string | wc -c `
let num-=1
last=`echo $my_string | cut -c$num`
echo $last


Assumption: (its last char here) is the string for which u needs the last character. Hope this is helpful.

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If you just need to check what is the last character and then act on its value, then a constructor case ... esac

is a portable way of expressing it.

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