On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 06:12:17PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote: > FWIW, bash has an =~ operator for regex matching whithin [[ ]]. There are > even special variables to pick up the capturing matches. > > Not portable, but arrays (which have been warmly recommended around here) > aren't, either. Yes, the =~ operator *could* be used for some kinds of parsing. I just didn't think it was the best choice for this specific problem.