I'm trying to write a matcher that matches any of v1.65.x, v1.66.x or v1.67.x. But the moment I introduce a character class, it doesn't work with either a list of characters or a range:
if [[ "v1.67.x" =~ "v1.67" ]]; then echo matches; else echo no match fi
outputs
matches
With Character class
if [[ "v1.67.x" =~ "v1.6[7]" ]]; then echo matches; else echo no match; fi
outputs
no match
What am I doing wrong?
This is explained in the fine manual:
If any part of the pattern is quoted, the quoted portion is matched literally. This means every character in the quoted portion matches itself, instead of having any special pattern matching meaning.
Without quotes it works:
if [[ "v1.67.x" =~ v1.6[7] ]]; then echo matches; else echo no match; fi
EDIT: as mentioned in the comments (now deleted), to prevent incorrect matches, use quotes around the literal part of the match:
if [[ "v1.67.x" =~ "v1.6"[7] ]]; then echo matches; else echo no match; fi
Otherwise the . will match any character.