The usual way to do this in bash is to use parameter expansion. (See the bash man page and search for "Parameter Expansion".)

a=${1%.*}

The % indicates that everything matching the pattern following (.*) from the right, using the shortest match possible, is to be deleted from the parameter $1. In this case, you don't need double-quotes (") around the expression.

The question in the subject line ("extract the" name" of a filename without the extension") can be solved with fileparts(): [folder, baseFileNameNoExt, extension] = fileparts(fullFileName); For the question in the body of the message, there is not enough information, but I'll take a guess at this: % So what is the option to specify when to stop reading if a period (.) is encountered? name=textscan(filename,???) fileName = 'abc.567.90xyz.txt' dotLocations = find(fileName == '.') if isempty(dotLocations) % No dots at all found so just take entire name. nameBeforeFirstDot = fileName else % Take up to , but not including, the first dot. nameBeforeFirstDot = fileName(1:dotLocations(1)-1) end

Python 3.4+

Use pathlib.Path.stem

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> Path("/path/to/file.txt").stem
'file'
>>> Path("/path/to/file.tar.gz").stem
'file.tar'

Python < 3.4

Use os.path.splitext in combination with os.path.basename:

>>> os.path.splitext(os.path.basename("/path/to/file.txt"))[0]
'file'
>>> os.path.splitext(os.path.basename("/path/to/file.tar.gz"))[0]
'file.tar'