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The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (strip the last word)
• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (strip the last words)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (strip the first word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (strip the first words)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

You might commonly use this syntax to trim filenames:

• ${A##*/} removes all containing folders, if any, from the start of the path, e.g.
  /usr/bin/git -> git
/usr/bin/ -> (empty string)

• ${A%/*} removes the last file/folder/trailing slash, if any, from the end:
  /usr/bin/git -> /usr/bin
/usr/bin/ -> /usr/bin

• ${A%.*} removes the last extension, if any (just be wary of things like my.path/noext):
  archive.tar.gz -> archive.tar

The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (strip the last word)
• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (strip the last words)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (strip the first word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (strip the first words)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

You might commonly use this syntax with other characters to trim filenames:

• ${A##*/} removes all containing folders, if any, from the start of the path, e.g.
  /usr/bin/git -> git
/usr/bin/ -> (empty string)
  /usr/bin -> bin

• ${A%/*} removes the last file/folder/trailing slash, if any, from the end:
  /usr/bin/git -> /usr/bin
/usr/bin/ -> /usr/bin
/usr/bin -> /usr/

• ${A%.*} removes the last extension, if any (just be wary of things like /my.path/noext):
  archive.tar.gz -> archive.tar
/my.path/noext -> /my (!)

To avoid the last issue, you use an explicit extension if you know it: %.ext instead of %.*

The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (strip the last word)
• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (strip the last words)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (strip the first word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (strip the first words)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

You might commonly use this syntax to trim filenames:

• ${A##*/} removes all containing folders (e.g. /usr/bin/git -> git)
• ${A%.*} removes the last extension (e.g. archive.tar.gz -> archive.tar) - just be wary of things like my.path/noext

The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (strip the last word)
• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (strip the last words)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (strip the first word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (strip the first words)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

You might commonly use this syntax to trim filenames:

• ${A##*/} removes all containing folders, if any, from the start of the path, e.g.
  /usr/bin/git -> git
/usr/bin/ -> (empty string)

• ${A%/*} removes the last file/folder/trailing slash, if any, from the end:
  /usr/bin/git -> /usr/bin
/usr/bin/ -> /usr/bin

• ${A%.*} removes the last extension, if any (just be wary of things like my.path/noext):
  archive.tar.gz -> archive.tar

The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (keep only the first word)
• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (keep all but the last word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (keep only the last word)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (keep all but the first word)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

The documentation is a bit painful to read, so I've summarised it in a simpler way.

Note that the '*' needs to swap places with the ' ' depending on whether you use # or %. (The * is just a wildcard, so you may need to take off your "regex hat" while reading.)

• ${A% *} - remove shortest trailing * (strip the last word)
• ${A%% *} - remove longest trailing * (strip the last words)
• ${A#* } - remove shortest leading * (strip the first word)
• ${A##* } - remove longest leading * (strip the first words)

Of course a "word" here may contain any character that isn't a literal space.

You might commonly use this syntax to trim filenames:

• ${A##*/} removes all containing folders (e.g. /usr/bin/git -> git)
• ${A%.*} removes the last extension (e.g. archive.tar.gz -> archive.tar) - just be wary of things like my.path/noext