How to remove last n characters from a string in Bash?

Question

I have a variable var in a Bash script holding a string, like:

echo $var
\"some string.rtf\"

I want to remove the last 4 chara

Answer 1

In this case you could use basename assuming you have the same suffix on the files you want to remove.

Example:

basename -s .rtf "some string.rtf"

This will return "some string"

If you don't know the suffix, and want it to remove everything after and including the last dot:

f=file.whateverthisis
basename "${f%.*}"

outputs "file"

% means chop, . is what you are chopping, * is wildcard