How to get the substring from the string

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1

Hi All,
Can anybody help me to get the substring from the given string.

2

In what context ? What shell/tools are you using, and what exactly do you need to achieve?

3

I want to retain a string except last two characters i.e. if string is "abcdef" , i want "abcd".

4

It can get as simple as ${string%??}

Look into man ksh for more details.

       ${name#pattern}, ${name##pattern}
              If pattern matches the beginning of the value of parameter name,
              the matched text is deleted from the result of substitution.   A
              single  #  results in the shortest match, two #?s results in the
              longest match.

       ${name%pattern}, ${name%%pattern}
              Like ${..#..} substitution, but it deletes from the end  of  the
              value.

You can also use typedef to get what you want.