Check if a string contains valid pattern in Bash - regex

Question

I have a file a.txt contains a string like:
Axxx-Bxxxx
Rules for checking if it is valid or not include:
length is 10 characters.
x here is digits only.
Then, I try to check with:
#!/bin/bash
exp_len=10;
file=a.txt;
msg="checking string";
tmp="File not exist";
echo $msg;
if[ -f $file];then
tmp=$(cat $file);
if[[${#tmp} != $exp_len ]];then
msg="invalid length";
elif [[ $tmp =~ ^[A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}]$]];then
msg="valid";
else
msg="invalid";
fi
else
msg="file not exist";
fi
echo $msg;
But in valid case it doesn't work...
Is there someone help to correct me?
Thanks :)

Answer 1

Other than the regex fix, your code can be refactored as well, moreover there are syntax issues as well. Consider this code:
file="a.txt"
msg="checking string"
tmp="File not exist"
echo "$msg"
if [[ -f $file ]]; then
s="$(<$file)"
if [[ $s =~ ^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$ ]]; then
msg="valid"
else
msg="invalid"
fi
else
msg="file not exist"
fi
echo "$msg"
Changes are:
Remove unnecessary cat
Use [[ ... ]] when using bash
Spaces inside [[ ... ]] are required (your code was missing them)
There is no need to check length of 10 as regex will make sure that part as well
As mentioned in comments earlier correct regex should be ^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$ or ^A[[:digit:]]{3}-B[[:digit:]]{4}$

Answer 2

Note that a regex like ^[A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}]$ matches
^ - start of string
[A[0-9]{3} - three occurrences of A, [ or a digit
-B - a -B string
[0-9]{4} - four digits
] - a ] char
$ - end of string.
So, it matches strings like [A[-B1234], [[[-B1939], etc.
Your regex checking line must look like
if [[ $tmp =~ ^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$ ]];then
See the online demo:
#!/bin/bash
tmp="A123-B1234";
if [[ $tmp =~ ^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$ ]];then
msg="valid";
else
msg="invalid";
fi
echo $msg;
Output:
valid

Answer 3

Using just grep might be easier:
$ echo A123-B1234 > valid.txt
$ echo 123 > invalid.txt
$ grep -Pq 'A\d{3}-B\d{4}' valid.txt && echo valid || echo invalid
valid
$ grep -Pq 'A\d{3}-B\d{4}' invalid.txt && echo valid || echo invalid
invalid

Answer 4

With your shown samples and attempts, please try following code also.
#!/bin/bash
exp_len=10;
file=a.txt;
msg="checking string";
tmp="File not exist";
if [[ -f "$file" ]]
then
echo "File named $file is existing.."
awk '/^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$/{print "valid";next} {print "invalid"}' "$file"
else
echo "Please do check File named $file is not existing, exiting from script now..."
exit 1;
fi
OR In case you want to check if line in your Input_file should be 10 characters long(by seeing OP's attempted code's exp_len shell variable) then try following code, where an additional condition is also added in awk code.
#!/bin/bash
exp_len=10;
file=a.txt;
msg="checking string";
tmp="File not exist";
if [[ -f "$file" ]]
then
echo "File named $file is existing.."
awk -v len="$exp_len" 'length($0) == len && /^A[0-9]{3}-B[0-9]{4}$/{print "valid";next} {print "invalid"}' "$file"
else
echo "Please do check File named $file is not existing, exiting from script now..."
exit 1;
fi
NOTE: I am using here -f flag to test if file is existing or not, you can change it to -s eg: -s "$file" in case you want to check file is present and is of NOT NULL size.