Bash regex

Regexp Matching

Use conditions with doubled [] and the =~ operator. Ensure not to quote the regular expression. Only BRE are allowed. If the regexp has whitespaces put it in a variable first.

if [[ $string =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then 
    echo "Is a number"
fi

Regexp Match Extraction

Variant #1: You can do this with grouping in bash. Despite only BRE being supported grouping works also. Note how you need to set the regexp into a variable because you must not quote it in the if condition!

REGEXP="2013:06:23 ([0-9]+):([0-9]+)"
if [[ $string =~ $REGEXP ]]; then
    echo "Hour ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} Minute ${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
fi

Variant #2: Actually using “expr” can much simpler especially when only on value is to be extracted:

hour=$(expr match "$string" '2013:06:23 \([0-9]\+\)')

Validate IPs

If you need to validate an IP try the following function

function validate_ip {
        local net=$1
        [[ $net =~ ^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}/[0-9]{1,2}$ ]] || return 1
        [[ ${net#*/} -le 32 ]] || return 1
        local ip=${net%/*}
        local -a oc=(${ip//\./ })
        [[ ${oc[0]} -le 255 && ${oc[1]} -le 255 && ${oc[2]} -le 255 && ${oc[3]} -le 255 ]] || return 1
        return 0
}