[twobob]

http://landley.net/mantis/mantis-2924.html

The shell construct:

${varname:begin:end} does not produce the substring of $varname starting at begin and going to end.

example:

#!/bin/ash

mystr="This is a string"
echo $mystr
mysubstr=${mystr:0:4}
echo $mysubstr
#end of example

Expected output:
This is a string
This

Actual output:
This is a string
./testscript: line 5: syntax error: Bad substitution

thought it looked familiar

so

if [[ \" = ${x:0:1} ]]; then

is just trimming the first char for a test? perhaps I can bodge that another way

EDIT:

if [[ \" = $( `echo $x | awk '{print substr ($0, 0, 1)}'` ) ]]; then

maybe??