How can I chain together filename modifiers in a bash shell?

Question

I understand the modifiers # ## % %%, but I can't figure out if its possible to chain them together as you can in tcsh.

Example in tcsh

set f = /foo/bar/myfile.0076.jpg
echo $f:r:e
--> 0076

echo $f:h:t
--> bar

In bash, I'd like to know how to do something like:

echo ${f%.*#*.}

in one line.

My goal is to be able to manipulate filenames in various ways as and when needed on the command line. I'm not trying to write a script for one specific case. So if there is a way to chain these modifiers, or maybe there's another way, then I'd love to know. Thanks

Answer 1

I found a solution that gets pretty close to the simplicity of the tcsh filename modifiers. I wrote 4 functions and put them in .bashrc.

e() # the extension
E() # everything but the extension
t() # the tail - i.e. everything after the last /
T() # everything but the tail (head)

Definitions are at the end.

These functions can accept an argument like so:

f=foo/bar/my_image_file.0076.jpg
e $f
--> jpg
E $f
--> foo/bar/my_image_file.0076

or accept input from a pipe, which is the feature from tcsh that I really wanted:

echo $f|E|e
--> 0076

or of course, a combination:

T $f|t
--> bar

and it just dawned on me it will accept many files through the pipe:

ls foo/bar/
--> my_image_file.0075.jpg  my_image_file.0076.jpg
ls foo/bar/ |E|e
--> 0075
--> 0076

Definitions:

#If there are no args, then assume input comes from a pipe.

function e(){
    if [ $# -ne 0 ]; then
        echo ${1##*.}  
    else
        while read data; do
            echo  ${data##*.}   ; 
        done
    fi
}

function E(){
    if [ $# -ne 0 ]; then
        echo ${1%.*} 
    else
        while read data; do
            echo ${data%.*}
        done
    fi
}

function t(){
    if [ $# -ne 0 ]; then
        echo ${1##*/}  
    else
        while read data; do
            echo  ${data##*/}   ; 
        done
    fi
}

function T(){
    if [ $# -ne 0 ]; then
        echo ${1%/*} 
    else
        while read data; do
            echo ${data%/*}
        done
    fi
}