Finding Substring in a String in Bash

If you’re ever in the need of checking if a variable in bash contains a certain string (and is not equal to, just a part of), the =~ operator to the test function comes in very handy. =~ is usually used to compare a variable against a regular expression, but can also be used for substrings (you may also use == *str*, but I prefer this way).

This short example submits a document to solr using curl, then emails the result if the Solr server responded with an error (.. I tried mapping this against the error code or something similiar instead, but didn’t find a better way. If you have something better, please leave a comment!):

    CURLRESULT=`cat $i | curl -s -X POST -H 'Content-Type: text/xml' -d @- $URL`
    if [[ $CURLRESULT =~ "Error report" ]]
      then 
	echo "Error!! Error!! CRISIS IMMINENT!!"
        echo $CURLRESULT | mail -s "Error importing to SOLR" mail@example.com
        exit
    fi

Neat to check that everything went OK before you remove the files you’ve submitted.

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