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1
 
url=http://www.foo.bar/file.ext; echo ${url##/*}

I expected this code to print file.ext, but it prints the whole URL. Why? How can I extract the file name?

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Okay obv I am expecting the wrong things to happen. Well I want to extract file.ext – ManuelSchneid3r Feb 11 '13 at 14:41
    
You're trying to cut the end off the string? Try dirname $url. Or grep -o 'http://[^/]*' <<<$url. – Kevin Feb 11 '13 at 15:04
up vote 7 down vote accepted

Because word has to match the string to be trimmed. It should look like:

url="http://www.foo.bar/file.ext"; echo "${url##*/}"

Thanks derobert, you steered me in the right direction.

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Hah, we both realize that at the same time. Glad to be of help. – derobert Feb 11 '13 at 14:51
up vote 6 down vote

To quote the manpage:

${parameter##word}
   Remove matching prefix pattern.  The word is expanded to produce
   a pattern just as in pathname expansion.  If the pattern matches
   the  beginning of the value of parameter, […]

/* does not match the beginning, because your URL starts with h not /.

A trivial way to do what you're looking for (according to your comment) is echo "$url" | rev | cut -d / -f 1 | rev. But of course, that'll give interesting results for URLs ending in a slash.

Another way to do what you want might be to use the pattern */ instead.

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up vote 2 down vote

See also: Bash Extended Globbing, though in this case the extended glob is not essential. 

 shopt -s extglob; url=http://www.foo.bar/file.ext; echo ${url##+(*/)}

Output: file.ext

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