Bash: Extract one of the four sections of an IPv4 address

Question

We can use the syntax ${var##pattern} and ${var%%pattern} to extract the last and first section of an IPv4 address:

IP=109.96.77.15
echo IP: $IP
echo 'Extract the first section using ${var%%pattern}: ' ${IP%%.*}
echo 'Extract the last section using ${var##pattern}: ' ${IP##*.}

How we can extract the second or third section of an IPv4 address using parameter expansion?

Here is my solution: I use an array and change the IFS variable.

:~/bin$ IP=109.96.77.15
:~/bin$ IFS=. read -a ArrIP<<<"$IP"
:~/bin$ echo ${ArrIP[1]}
    96
:~/bin$ printf "%s\n" "${ArrIP[@]}"
    109
    96
    77
    15

Also I have written some solutions using the awk, sed, and cut commands.

Now, my question is: Is there a simpler solution based on parameter expansion which does not use array and IFS changing?

Answer 1

Assuming the default value of IFS you extract each octet into it's own variable with:

read A B C D <<<"${IP//./ }"

Or into an array with:

A=(${IP//./ })

Answer 2

Your problem statement may be a bit more liberal than you intended.  At the risk of exploiting a loophole, here’s the solution muru alluded to:

first=${IP%%.*}
last3=${IP#*.}
second=${last3%%.*}
last2=${last3#*.}
third=${last2%.*}
fourth=${last2#*.}
echo "$IP -> $first, $second, $third, $fourth"

---

This is somewhat clunky.  It defines two throw-away variables, and it is not readily adapted to handle more sections (e.g., for a MAC or IPv6 address).  Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy’s answer inspired me to generalize the above to this:

slice="$IP"
count=1
while [ "$count" -le 4 ]
do
    declare sec"$count"="${slice%%.*}"
    slice="${slice#*.}"
    count=$((count+1))
done

This sets sec1, sec2, sec3 and sec4, which can be verified with

printf 'Section 1: %s\n' "$sec1"
printf 'Section 2: %s\n' "$sec2"
printf 'Section 3: %s\n' "$sec3"
printf 'Section 4: %s\n' "$sec4"

• The while loop should be easy to understand — it iterates four times.
• Sergiy chose slice as the name for a variable that takes the place of last3 and last2 in my first solution (above).
• declare sec"$count"="value" is a way to assign to sec1, sec2, sec3 and sec4 when count is 1, 2, 3 and 4.  It’s a little like eval, but safer.
• The value, "${slice%%.*}", is analogous to the values my original answer assigns to first, second and third.

Answer 3

I do realize that you specifically asked for a solution that DID NOT temporarily redefine IFS, but I have a sweet and simple solution that you didn't cover, so here goes:

IFS=. ; set -- $IP

That short command will put the elements of your IP address in the shell's positional parameters $1, $2, $3, $4. However, you'll probably want to first save the original IFS and restore it afterwards.

Who knows? Maybe you'll reconsider and accept this answer for its brevity and efficiency.

(This was previously incorrectly given as IFS=. set -- $IP)

Answer 4

With zsh, you can nest parameter substitutions:

$ ip=12.34.56.78
$ echo ${${ip%.*}##*.}
56
$ echo ${${ip#*.}%%.*}
34

This is not possible in bash.

Answer 5

Sure, let's play the elephant game.

$ ipsplit() { local IFS=.; ip=(.$*); }
$ ipsplit 10.1.2.3
$ echo ${ip[1]}
10

or

$ ipsplit() { local IFS=.; echo $*; }
$ set -- `ipsplit 10.1.2.3`
$ echo $1
10

Answer 6

Not the easiest, but you could do something like:

$ IP=109.96.77.15
$ echo "$((${-+"(${IP//./"+256*("}))))"}&255))"
109
$ echo "$((${-+"(${IP//./"+256*("}))))"}>>8&255))"
96
$ echo "$((${-+"(${IP//./"+256*("}))))"}>>16&255))"
77
$ echo "$((${-+"(${IP//./"+256*("}))))"}>>24&255))"
15

That should work in ksh93 (where that ${var//pattern/replacement} operator comes from), bash, mksh and zsh, though of course in zsh, there are much simpler approaches.

That assumes $IP contains a valid quad-decimal representation of an IPv4 address (though that would also work for quad-hexadecimal representations like 0x6d.0x60.0x4d.0xf (and even octal in some shells) but would output the values in decimal). If the content of $IP comes from an untrusted source, that would amount to a command injection vulnerability.

Basically, as we're replacing every . in $IP with +256*(, we end up evaluating:

 $(( (109+256*(96+256*(77+256*(15))))>> x &255 ))

So we're constructing a 32 bit integer out of those 4 bytes like an IPv4 address ultimately is (though with the bytes reversed)¹ and then using the >>, & bitwise operators to extract the relevant bytes.

In ksh93, you can also do:

$ echo "${IP/@(*).@(*).@(*).@(*)/\2}"
96

bash, mksh, zsh have copied ksh93's ${var/pattern/replacement} operator but not that capture-group handling part. zsh supports it with a different syntax:

$ setopt extendedglob # for (#b)
$ echo ${IP/(#b)(*).(*).(*).(*)/$match[2]}'
96

bash does support some form of capture group handling in its regexp matching operator, but not in ${var/pattern/replacement}.

POSIXly, you'd use:

(IFS=.; set -o noglob; set -- $IP; printf '%s\n' "$2")

The noglob to avoid bad surprises for values of $IP like 10.*.*.*, the subshell to limit the scope of those changes to options and $IFS.

---

¹ An IPv4 address is just a 32 bit integer and 127.0.0.1 for instance is just one of many (though the most common) textual representations. That same typical IPv4 address of the loopback interface can also be represented as 0x7f000001 or 127.1 (maybe a more appropriate one here to say it's the 1 address on the 127.0/8 class A network), or 0177.0.1, or the other combinations of 1 to 4 numbers expressed as octal, decimal or hexadecimal. You can pass all those to ping for instance and you'll see they will all ping localhost.

If you don't mind the side effect of setting an arbitrary temporary variable (here $n), in bash or ksh93 or zsh -o octalzeroes or lksh -o posix, you can simply convert all those representations back to a 32 bit integer with:

$((n=32,(${IP//./"<<(n-=8))+("})))

And then extract all the components with >>/& combinations like above.

$ IP=0x7f000001
$ echo "$((n=32,(${IP//./"<<(n-=8))+("})))"
2130706433
$ IP=127.1
$ echo "$((n=32,(${IP//./"<<(n-=8))+("})))"
2130706433
$ echo "$((n=32,((${IP//./"<<(n-=8))+("}))>>24&255))"
127
$ perl -MSocket -le 'print unpack("L>", inet_aton("127.0.0.1"))'
2130706433

mksh uses signed 32 bit integers for its arithmetic expressions, you can use $((# n=32,...)) there to force the use of unsigned 32 bit numbers (and the posix option for it to recognise octal constants).

Answer 7

With IP=12.34.56.78.

IFS=. read a b c d <<<"$IP"

And

#!/bin/bash
IP=$1

regex="(${IP//\./)\.(})"
[[ $IP =~ $regex ]]
echo "${BASH_REMATCH[@]:1}"

Description:

Use of parameter expansion ${IP// } to convert each dot in the ip to an opening parenthesis a dot and a closing parenthesis. Adding an initial parenthesis and a closing parenthesis, we get:

regex=(12)\.(34)\.(56)\.(78)

which will create four capture parenthesis for the regex match in the test syntax:

[[ $IP =~ $regex ]]

That allows the printing of the array BASH_REMATCH without the first component (the whole regex match):

echo "${BASH_REMATCH[@]:1}"

The amount of parenthesis is automatically adjusted to the matched string. So, this will match either a MAC or an EUI-64 of an IPv6 address despite them being of different length:

#!/bin/bash
IP=$1

regex="(${IP//:/):(})"
[[ $IP =~ $regex ]]
echo "${BASH_REMATCH[@]:1}"

Using it:

$ ./script 00:0C:29:0C:47:D5
00 0C 29 0C 47 D5

$ ./script 00:0C:29:FF:FE:0C:47:D5
00 0C 29 FF FE 0C 47 D5

Answer 8

Here's a small solution done with POSIX /bin/sh ( in my case that's dash ), a function that repeatedly uses parameter expansion (so no IFS here), and named pipes, and includes noglob option for reasons mentioned in Stephane's answer.

#!/bin/sh
set -o noglob
get_ip_sections(){
    slice="$1"
    count=0
    while [ -n "${slice}" ] && [ "$count" -ne 4 ]
    do
        num="${slice%%.*}"
        printf '%s ' "${num}"
        slice="${slice#*${num}.}"
        count=$((count+1))
    done
}

ip="109.96.77.15"
named_pipe="/tmp/ip_stuff.fifo"
mkfifo "${named_pipe}"
get_ip_sections "$ip" > "${named_pipe}" &
read sec1 sec2 sec3 sec4 < "${named_pipe}"
printf 'Actual ip:%s\n' "${ip}"
printf 'Section 1:%s\n' "${sec1}"
printf 'Section 3:%s\n' "${sec3}"
rm  "${named_pipe}"

This works as so:

$ ./get_ip_sections.sh 
Actual ip:109.96.77.15
Section 1:109
Section 3:77

And with ip changed to 109.*.*.*

$ ./get_ip_sections.sh 
Actual ip:109.*.*.*
Section 1:109
Section 3:*

The loop keeping counter of 4 iterations accounts for 4 sections of a valid IPv4 address, while acrobatics with named pipes account for need to further use sections of ip address within script as opposed to having variables stuck in a subshell of a loop.

Answer 9

$ ip_=192.168.2.3

$ echo $ip_ 

192.168.2.3

$ echo $ip_ |cut -d "." -f 1

192