In a bash shell how do I delete the last "/" of a path?

Question

Say for example I have a path like

path_1=/this/is/a/path/with/slash/

How do I get the following:

/this/is/a/path/with/slash

so the path without the last "/"

Answer 1

All POSIX shells have (c.f. man bash) "Parameter Expansion: Remove matching suffix pattern". So, use

$ echo "${path_1%/}"
/this/is/a/path/with/slash

If the variable's value does not end in a slash, then the value would be outputted without modification.

Answer 2

You can use realpath

DIR=/tmp/foo///
echo "$(realpath -s "$DIR")"
# output: /tmp/foo

Answer 3

Another way of removing the slash is

 $ echo "$(dirname -- "$path")/$(basename -- "$path")"

We just combined the two common shell commands dirname and basename.

Answer 4

You can use sed in a simple way like this:

$ echo $path_1|sed 's-/$--'
/this/is/a/path/with/slash

Explanation:

• s: Substitute. The first - marks the end of the command.
• /$: Search pattern. The $ means look at the end of the line.
• There is nothing between the second and third -, meaning, "replace the ending / with nothing".
• You can use any character instead of - the most common is /, but since we are looking for the / itself, it is easier to use some other character. If one really wants to use /, then it would need to be escaped like so:

$ echo $path_1|sed 's/\/$//'

Answer 5

There are several options. I usually canonicalise the path. When you canonicalise a path, you get the base path.

For example, if the path is a link to a folder, the canonical form will get the actual path. It will also remove all double-slashes, which although unusual, are allowed in Unix and Linux.

Suppose ~/lf is a link to ~/.hidden/food/limes/.

PATHNAME=~/lf//price/
CANONICAL_PATH="$( realpath --canonicalize-existing "${PATHNAME}" )"
echo "${CANONICAL_PATH}"

The result would be /home/kamil/.hidden/food/limes/price

This also works for files, block devices, etc., although of course they don't have a trailing slash. For example, on my system:

PATHNAME=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/Boot
CANONICAL_PATH="$( realpath --canonicalize-existing "${PATHNAME}" )"
echo "${CANONICAL_PATH}"

The result is /dev/nvme0n1p2

If you aren't sure that the path exists, you need to add some error-checking.

PATHNAME=~/lf//price/
CANONICAL_PATH="$( realpath --canonicalize-existing "${PATHNAME}" 2>/dev/null )"
if [[ -z ${CANONICAL_PATH} ]]
then
    echo "Path doesn't exist: ${PATHNAME}" >&2
else
   echo "Canonical path is ${CANONICAL_PATH}"
fi