Hey Jame!   
      
   Weird characters showing up here so I'll take the liberty of reposting your   
   code below.   
      
   ----- ye ol' gpm cut n' paste starts   
      
   file="thisfile.txt"   
   echo "filename: ${file%.*}"   
   echo "extension: ${file##*.}"   
      
   ----- ye ol' gpm cut n' paste ends   
      
   The result of this on the commandline yeilds;   
      
   $ echo "filename: ${file%.*}"   
   filename: thisfile   
   $ echo "extension: ${file##*.}"   
   extension: txt   
      
   Seems to work great.  For the record the ascii code for the " characters are   
   not <83> <9D> which is what I see in your post.  They are really 0x22 or 22h   
   or decimal 32 or U+0022 (<- utf8).  ;-)   
      
   Life is good,   
   Maurice   
      
   --- GNU bash, version 4.2.20(2)-release (x86_64-core2-linux-gnu)   
    * Origin: Pointy Stick Society (1:261/38.9)