How to Remove Last Character From a String in Bash

1. Remove Last n Characters From a String Using Pattern Replacement in Bash
2. Remove Last n Characters From a String Using Parameter Substitution in Bash

Let’s have a look at different ways of removing the last characters from a string.

Remove Last n Characters From a String Using Pattern Replacement in Bash

To remove the last characters from a string, type the variable name followed by a % symbol and a number of ? symbols equal to the number of characters to be removed.

Example:

variable="verylongstring"
echo ${variable%??????}

Output:

verylong

Remove the Starting Characters

Replace the % symbol with the # symbol to remove characters from the starting point.

Example:

variable="verylongstring"
echo ${variable#????????}

Output:

string

Remove Last n Characters From a String Using Parameter Substitution in Bash

The main idea of this method is to chop from the beginning of the string up to the length - number of characters to remove. This is done by ${variable_name:starting_index:last_index}

Example:

variable="verylongstring"
length=${#variable}
echo ${variable::length-4}

Output:

verylongst

We begin by determining the string’s length. Chop the string from the beginning index, which in this case is 0 (no need to mention), and up to the length subtracted with the number of characters to be deleted.