Extracting 10 digit number from txt files

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

Was wondering if you could give me an example of extracting a 10 digit number from 5 txt files using a regular expression (the number is always different ) and storing the numbers in variables

Thanks

C19

2

What you have attempted so far? It sounds like homework.

3

Not quite homework!, i'm a developer for Barclays bank, shell scripting is new to me, and wondered about regular expressions, I've just ordered Shells by example, hopefully that should point me in the right direction...

4

Try this:

your_variable=`cat t1.txt t2.txt t3.txt t4.txt t5.txt | sed -n -e 's/.*\([0-9]\{10\}\).*/\1/p'`

5

once again..... why do you need 'cat'?

6

send the contents of the files (1 -5) to sed command for processing.

7

vgersh99's point is that cat is not necessary since sed can read from multiple files. It's the whole UUoC (useless use of cat) idea.

8

I agree - it's up to you. I like to use cat to pipe everything to next command. The above command is the same as following:

sed -n -e 's/.*\([0-9]\{10\}\).*/\1/p' t1.txt t2.txt t3.txt t4.txt t5.txt

9

I'd suggest reading the posted link to UUoC or this one.

BTW......

sed -n -e 's/.*\([0-9]\{10\}\).*/\1/p' t[1-5].txt
10

Also BTW, if you need to check for only 10 character numbers, on word boundaries, this alternative may narrow the scope:

sed -n -e 's/\(\<[0-9]\{10\}\>\)/\1/p'