Information extraction

[VoiDeR]

Im trying to write a script (perl or bash doesnt matter) that will get the file location from xmms-info. Heres what i have so far

cat /tmp/xmms-info_voider.0 | grep File: | sed -e 's/.* //'
and i get the output
/mnt/storage/music/ARTIST/ALBUM/SONG.mp3

I need to get it down to /mnt/storage/music/ARTIST/ALBUM/
Im sure that all i need to do is pipe the output from the first command through sed again but im not very good with the sed command. I tried using perl but im still learning it.

VoiDeR

[bwkaz]

The dirname command comes to mind (and also getting rid of a Useless Use of Cat :p):

file="$(grep File: /tmp/xmms-info_voider.0 | sed -e 's/.* //')"

dir="$(dirname "$file")" All the quotes are for the case where your filename (or a directory in the path) has spaces or tabs in it. Newlines will screw up grep and sed already, so there's not much point in handling that (although the quotes would).

[VoiDeR]

Thanks bwkaz that works great. If you dont mind me asking why does everyone not like using the cat command. I love the cat command and use it all the time. Should i stop.

VoiDeR

[bwkaz]

It's not that I don't like cat; it's that you're wasting a process for no good reason. ;)

Also see:

http://www.ruhr.de/home/smallo/award.html