BASH better way to do a look back?

Question

hey guys I'm wondering if there is a smart way to look back before a period in bash

file='foo'/bar/styles.css?ver=1.4.2

ext=$(echo ${file} | gawk -F  "?" '{print$1}')
echo "${ext##*.}" # css

Seems like I should be able to do this all in my expansion somehow?

Answer 1

Don't think you can do it with just one bash expansion statement (unless they can be nested somehow), works fine with two though

$ start=${file%%\?*}; echo ${start##*.}
css