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Is there a more Bashist way than echo "$PWD//" | sed -e 's#//\+#/#g' to replace repeating slashes with a single one?

Thanks Steven D, now there's a fully working function to find the longest common path of two or more paths: path_common.

Steven D · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-15 22:36:33Z

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Not a "Bash-only" answer, but perhaps useful:

echo "$PWD///" | tr -s '/'

edited Apr 15 '11 at 22:36

answered Apr 15 '11 at 15:16

Steven D
9,7302855

1

The "squeeze" (-s) option to tr can be used on a range of characters, too: echo "aabbcc" | tr -s '[ac]' should yeild "abbc" – Bruce Ediger Apr 15 '11 at 20:35

+1, exactly what I was looking for – l0b0 Apr 19 '11 at 7:02

Mat · Answer 2 · 2011-04-15 13:42:05Z

up vote 5 down vote

Possible in "pure bash", but only with extglob active.

$ shopt -s extglob
$ A="////qsd/////sdfgfg//qsd//////"
$ echo ${A//\/+(\/)/\/}
/qsd/sdfgfg/qsd/

answered Apr 15 '11 at 13:42

Mat
16k23867

	@Mat.. The replacement needs to be `/` (not `\/`) on my system... ???? – Peter.O Apr 19 '11 at 11:01
	@fred.bear: both work here (bash 4.1.9(2)) – Mat Apr 19 '11 at 11:04
	@Mat.. version 4.1.5(1) ... That must be it. thanks. – Peter.O Apr 19 '11 at 11:07

Peter.O · Answer 3 · 2011-04-19 11:05:54Z

up vote 0 down vote

UPDATE: Mat(+1) has got the right idea... my answer only works for odd numbers of "/"

it does not need "extglob" to be set.

var="$PWD///"; var="${var//\/\//}" ; echo "$var"

edited Apr 19 '11 at 11:05

answered Apr 19 '11 at 9:56

Peter.O
8,01531549

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