Extract text between two unicode symbols using AppleScript or bash?

Question

My goal is to take text from a standard .txt document, and use (preferably) Terminal or Applescript to extract text between the symbols ▶ and •. While there is only one ▶ symbol there are multiple bullet points, so being able to extract data between only the first bullet is vital. I am partially educated in the ways of bash, so explanation would help me out a lot, otherwise I might screw up. TIA, Jake

Answer 1

This runs with Bash, but it evokes some Ruby code:

ruby - <<EOF
puts /▶[^•]*•/.match("▶the first •2•3•4•5•666643")
EOF

If you decide to use AppleScript, you have a lot of options for what to match against:

on run {input, parameters}
    set var to "▶the first •2•3•4•5•666643"

    set output to (do shell script ¬
"ruby - <<EOF
    puts /▶([^•]*)•/.match('" & var & "')[1]
EOF")

    return output
end run

Alternatively, sed can be used, which is easier for working with files:

sed -E 's/.*▶([^•]*)•.*/\1/' filename.txt