title: What does the curly-brace syntax ${var%.*} mean?
body: <p>I was reviewing some of my old code and came across this syntax:</p>
  
  <pre><code>extractDir="${downloadFileName%.*}-tmp"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The only information I found searching refers to a list of commands, but this is just one variable. <strong>What does this curly-brace syntax mean in bash?</strong> </p>