I am trying to extract the middle value from a register that is something like this:

```
NAME=PATH=USER=DATE

```

I need to get the path part and all I came up with is this:

```
=[^=]*=

```

the problem is that it includes the = at the beginning and at the end. How could i not include them?

Also, which unix command should I use to extract it? I was thinking sed, but I usually use it to replace strings not to get them. grep maybe? 

I am new in bash programming...

Is there any place where I can learn some regex? because I think I will need to really know how to work with them.