Some time ago, I was lamenting that Bash did not have something comparable to PARSE found in Rexx / Open Object Rexx. Shortly I received a reply from Dallas Legan that he had built a tool capable of exposing the power of PARSE and allow it to be used within Bash scripts. That concept totally rocks! That tool may be found here:
"A Simple, General Command Line Filter In REXX"
http://www.scoug.com/os24u/2001/scoug010.parsetool.html