What is the easiest way to remove trailing slash from each parameter?

Question

What is the easiest way to remove the trailing slash from each parameter in the $ @ array so that rsync copies directories by name?

 rsync -a --exclude='*~' "$@" "$dir" 

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The name has been changed to clarify. To understand the comments and response to a few trailing slashes, review the change history.

Answer 1

You can use the extension ${parameter%word} , which is described in detail here . Here is a simple script test that demonstrates the behavior:

 #!/bin/bash # Call this as: # ./test.sh one/ two/ three/ # # Output: # one two three echo ${@%/} 

Answer 2

This works for me: ${VAR%%+(/)}

As described here http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/pattern

You may need to set the extglob shell option. I don’t see it being turned on for me, but it still works

Answer 3

The accepted answer trims ONE end of the slash.

One way to trim multiple trailing slashes is as follows:

 VALUE=/looks/like/a/path/// TRIMMED=$(echo $VALUE | sed 's:/*$::') echo $VALUE $TRIMMED 

What outputs:

 /looks/like/a/path/// /looks/like/a/path 

Answer 4

In zsh, you can use the modifier :a .

 export DIRECTORY='/some//path/name//' echo "${DIRECTORY:a}" => /some/path/name 

This acts like a realpath , but does not fail with the absence of files / directories as an argument.

Answer 5

realpath resolves the given path. Among other things, it also removes trailing slashes. Use -s to prevent the following symlinks

 DIR=/tmp/a/// echo $(realpath -s $DIR) # output: /tmp/a 

Answer 6

FYI, I added these two functions to my .bash_profile based on the answers found on SO. As Chris Johnson said, all answers using ${x%/} remove only one slash, these functions will do what they say, hope this is useful.

 rem_trailing_slash() { echo $1 | sed 's/\/*$//g' } force_trailing_slash() { echo $(rem_trailing_slash $1)/ }