I would like to concatenate unlimited numbers of arrays using shortest lines possible, so for this I did the code below:
#!/bin/bash
declare -a list1=("element1")
declare -a list2=("element2")
declare -a list3=("element3")
declare -a list4=("element4")
declare -a list
for i in {1..4}
do
list=( ${list[#]} ${list$i[#]} )
done
echo ${list[*]}
But the code above is not working because $i is not seen as variable and the error is: ${list$i[#]} bad substitution
You can use variable indirection:
for i in {1..4} ; do
ref="list$i[#]"
list+=("${!ref}")
done
echo "${list[#]}"
The following code outputs all 4 lists concatenated together.
eval echo \${list{1..4}[*]}
This code runs filename expansion over the result of list elements (* is replaced by filenames). Consider sacrificing 4 characters and doing \"\${list{1..4}[*]}\".
Note that eval is evil https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/048 and such code is confusing. I wouldn't write such code in a real script - I would definitely use a loop. Use shellcheck to check your scripts.
I need to read the output of a command in my script into an array. The command is, for example:
ps aux | grep | grep | x
and it gives the output line by line like this:
10
20
30
I need to read the values from the command output into an array, and then I will do some work if the size of the array is less than three.
The other answers will break if output of command contains spaces (which is rather frequent) or glob characters like *, ?, [...].
To get the output of a command in an array, with one line per element, there are essentially 3 ways:
With Bash≥4 use mapfile—it's the most efficient:
mapfile -t my_array < <( my_command )
Otherwise, a loop reading the output (slower, but safe):
my_array=()
while IFS= read -r line; do
my_array+=( "$line" )
done < <( my_command )
As suggested by Charles Duffy in the comments (thanks!), the following might perform better than the loop method in number 2:
IFS=$'\n' read -r -d '' -a my_array < <( my_command && printf '\0' )
Please make sure you use exactly this form, i.e., make sure you have the following:
IFS=$'\n' on the same line as the read statement: this will only set the environment variable IFS for the read statement only. So it won't affect the rest of your script at all. The purpose of this variable is to tell read to break the stream at the EOL character \n.
-r: this is important. It tells read to not interpret the backslashes as escape sequences.
-d '': please note the space between the -d option and its argument ''. If you don't leave a space here, the '' will never be seen, as it will disappear in the quote removal step when Bash parses the statement. This tells read to stop reading at the nil byte. Some people write it as -d $'\0', but it is not really necessary. -d '' is better.
-a my_array tells read to populate the array my_array while reading the stream.
You must use the printf '\0' statement after my_command, so that read returns 0; it's actually not a big deal if you don't (you'll just get an return code 1, which is okay if you don't use set -e – which you shouldn't anyway), but just bear that in mind. It's cleaner and more semantically correct. Note that this is different from printf '', which doesn't output anything. printf '\0' prints a null byte, needed by read to happily stop reading there (remember the -d '' option?).
If you can, i.e., if you're sure your code will run on Bash≥4, use the first method. And you can see it's shorter too.
If you want to use read, the loop (method 2) might have an advantage over method 3 if you want to do some processing as the lines are read: you have direct access to it (via the $line variable in the example I gave), and you also have access to the lines already read (via the array ${my_array[#]} in the example I gave).
Note that mapfile provides a way to have a callback eval'd on each line read, and in fact you can even tell it to only call this callback every N lines read; have a look at help mapfile and the options -C and -c therein. (My opinion about this is that it's a little bit clunky, but can be used sometimes if you only have simple things to do — I don't really understand why this was even implemented in the first place!).
Now I'm going to tell you why the following method:
my_array=( $( my_command) )
is broken when there are spaces:
$ # I'm using this command to test:
$ echo "one two"; echo "three four"
one two
three four
$ # Now I'm going to use the broken method:
$ my_array=( $( echo "one two"; echo "three four" ) )
$ declare -p my_array
declare -a my_array='([0]="one" [1]="two" [2]="three" [3]="four")'
$ # As you can see, the fields are not the lines
$
$ # Now look at the correct method:
$ mapfile -t my_array < <(echo "one two"; echo "three four")
$ declare -p my_array
declare -a my_array='([0]="one two" [1]="three four")'
$ # Good!
Then some people will then recommend using IFS=$'\n' to fix it:
$ IFS=$'\n'
$ my_array=( $(echo "one two"; echo "three four") )
$ declare -p my_array
declare -a my_array='([0]="one two" [1]="three four")'
$ # It works!
But now let's use another command, with globs:
$ echo "* one two"; echo "[three four]"
* one two
[three four]
$ IFS=$'\n'
$ my_array=( $(echo "* one two"; echo "[three four]") )
$ declare -p my_array
declare -a my_array='([0]="* one two" [1]="t")'
$ # What?
That's because I have a file called t in the current directory… and this filename is matched by the glob [three four]… at this point some people would recommend using set -f to disable globbing: but look at it: you have to change IFS and use set -f to be able to fix a broken technique (and you're not even fixing it really)! when doing that we're really fighting against the shell, not working with the shell.
$ mapfile -t my_array < <( echo "* one two"; echo "[three four]")
$ declare -p my_array
declare -a my_array='([0]="* one two" [1]="[three four]")'
here we're working with the shell!
You can use
my_array=( $(<command>) )
to store the output of command <command> into the array my_array.
You can access the length of that array using
my_array_length=${#my_array[#]}
Now the length is stored in my_array_length.
Here is a simple example. Imagine that you are going to put the files and directory names (under the current folder) to an array and count them. The script would be like;
my_array=( `ls` )
my_array_length=${#my_array[#]}
echo $my_array_length
Or, you can iterate over this array by adding the following script:
for element in "${my_array[#]}"
do
echo "${element}"
done
Please note that this is the core concept and the input must be sanitized before the processing, i.e. removing extra characters, handling empty Strings, and etc. (which is out of the topic of this thread).
It helps me all the time suppose you want to copy whole list of directories into current directory into an array
bucketlist=($(ls))
#then print them one by one
for bucket in "${bucketlist[#]}"; do
echo " here is bucket: ${bucket}"
done
My closest most helpful matches when I searched for an answer ahead of posting:
Iterate over array in shell whose name is stored in a variable
How to use an argument/parameter name as a variable in a bash script
How to iterate over an array using indirect reference?
My attempt with partial success:
#!/bin/bash
declare -a large_furry_mammals
declare -a array_reference
# I tried both declaring array_reference as an array and
# not declaring it as an array. no change in behavior.
large_furry_mammals=(horse zebra gorilla)
size=large
category=mammals
tmp="${size}_furry_${category}"
eval array_reference='$'$tmp
echo tmp=$tmp
echo array_reference[0]=${array_reference[0]}
echo array_reference[1]=${array_reference[1]}
Output
tmp=large_furry_mammals
array_reference[0]=horse
array_reference[1]=
Expectation
I would have expected to get the output zebra when I echoed array_reference[1].
...but I'm missing some subtlety...
Why can I not access elements of the index array beyond index 0?
This suggests that array_reference is not actually being treated as an array.
I'm not looking to make a copy of the array. I want to reference (what will be) a static array based on a variable pointing to that array, i.e., ${size}_furry_${category} -> large_furry_mammals.
I've been successful with the general idea here using the links I've posted but only as long as its not an array. When it's an array, it's falling down for me.
Addendum Dec 5, 2018
bash 4.3 is not available in this case. #benjamin's answer does work on under 4.3.
I'll be needing to loop over the resulting array variable's contents. This kinda dumb example I gave involving mammals was just to describe the concept. There's actually a real world case around this. I have set of static reference arrays and an input string would be parsed to select which array was relevant and then I will loop over the array that was selected. I could do a case statement but with more than 100 reference arrays that would be the direct but overly verbose way to do it.
This pseudo code is probably better example of what I'm going after.
m1_array=(x a r d)
m2_array=(q 3 fg d)
m3_array=(c e p)
Based on some logic...select which array prefix you need.
x=m1
for each element in ${x}_array
do
some-task
done
I'm doing some testing with #eduardo's solution to see if I can adapt the way he references the variables to get to my endgame.
** Addendum #2 December 14, 2018 **
Solution
I found it! Working with #eduardo's example I came up with the following:
#!/bin/bash
declare -a large_furry_mammals
#declare -a array_reference
large_furry_mammals=(horse zebra gorilla)
size=large
category=mammals
tmp="${size}_furry_${category}[#]"
for element in "${!tmp}"
do
echo $element
done
Here is what execution looks like. We successfully iterate over the elements of the array string that was built dynamically.
./example3b.sh
horse
zebra
gorilla
Thank you everyone.
If you have Bash 4.3 or newer, you can use namerefs:
large_furry_mammals=(horse zebra gorilla)
size=large
category=mammals
declare -n array_reference=${size}_furry_$category
printf '%s\n' "${array_reference[#]}"
with output
horse
zebra
gorilla
This is a reference, so changes are reflected in both large_furry_mammals and array_reference:
$ array_reference[0]='donkey'
$ large_furry_mammals[3]='llama'
$ printf '%s\n' "${array_reference[#]}"
donkey
zebra
gorilla
llama
$ printf '%s\n' "${large_furry_mammals[#]}"
donkey
zebra
gorilla
llama
declare -a large_furry_mammals
declare -a array_reference
large_furry_mammals=(horse zebra gorilla)
size=large
category=mammals
echo ${large_furry_mammals[#]}
tmp="${size}_furry_${category}"
array_reference=${tmp}"[1]"
eval ${array_reference}='bear'
echo tmp=$tmp
echo ${large_furry_mammals[#]}
I have a script which I want to execute with several different arguments, I've got an array that contains all the parameter(argument) combinations ${array[i]}.
I want to be able to submit a job array using all the different argument stored in the array:
arr_length=${#submittions[#]}
qsub -t 1-$arr_length myscript <*>
*Here, I want to use the values of -t to go through my array and use the different parameters stored in it here, I don't know is it is possible.
I have read that there is a built in variable $SGE_TASK_ID.
The array contain from two to seven file paths separated by one space and an amount of arr_length elements in the array. which will be the arguments for the python script.
${!array[#]} never contains the values of the elements in the array. The contain only the indices. For the array elements use "${array[#]}" in your script as
qsub -t 1-${arr_length} myscript "${array[#]}"
E.g.
array=('foo' 'bar' 'dude')
printf '%s\n' "${!array[#]}"
0
1
2
and see the output of
printf '%s\n' "${array[#]}"
I can not export an array from a bash script to another bash script like this:
export myArray[0]="Hello"
export myArray[1]="World"
When I write like this there are no problem:
export myArray=("Hello" "World")
For several reasons I need to initialize my array into multiple lines. Do you have any solution?
Array variables may not (yet) be exported.
From the manpage of bash version 4.1.5 under ubuntu 10.04.
The following statement from Chet Ramey (current bash maintainer as of 2011) is probably the most official documentation about this "bug":
There isn't really a good way to encode an array variable into the environment.
http://www.mail-archive.com/bug-bash#gnu.org/msg01774.html
TL;DR: exportable arrays are not directly supported up to and including bash-5.1, but you can (effectively) export arrays in one of two ways:
a simple modification to the way the child scripts are invoked
use an exported function to store the array initialisation, with a simple modification to the child scripts
Or, you can wait until bash-4.3 is released (in development/RC state as of February 2014, see ARRAY_EXPORT in the Changelog). Update: This feature is not enabled in 4.3. If you define ARRAY_EXPORT when building, the build will fail. The author has stated it is not planned to complete this feature.
The first thing to understand is that the bash environment (more properly command execution environment) is different to the POSIX concept of an environment. The POSIX environment is a collection of un-typed name=value pairs, and can be passed from a process to its children in various ways (effectively a limited form of IPC).
The bash execution environment is effectively a superset of this, with typed variables, read-only and exportable flags, arrays, functions and more. This partly explains why the output of set (bash builtin) and env or printenv differ.
When you invoke another bash shell you're starting a new process, you loose some bash state. However, if you dot-source a script, the script is run in the same environment; or if you run a subshell via ( ) the environment is also preserved (because bash forks, preserving its complete state, rather than reinitialising using the process environment).
The limitation referenced in #lesmana's answer arises because the POSIX environment is simply name=value pairs with no extra meaning, so there's no agreed way to encode or format typed variables, see below for an interesting bash quirk regarding functions , and an upcoming change in bash-4.3(proposed array feature abandoned).
There are a couple of simple ways to do this using declare -p (built-in) to output some of the bash environment as a set of one or more declare statements which can be used reconstruct the type and value of a "name". This is basic serialisation, but with rather less of the complexity some of the other answers imply. declare -p preserves array indexes, sparse arrays and quoting of troublesome values. For simple serialisation of an array you could just dump the values line by line, and use read -a myarray to restore it (works with contiguous 0-indexed arrays, since read -a automatically assigns indexes).
These methods do not require any modification of the script(s) you are passing the arrays to.
declare -p array1 array2 > .bash_arrays # serialise to an intermediate file
bash -c ". .bash_arrays; . otherscript.sh" # source both in the same environment
Variations on the above bash -c "..." form are sometimes (mis-)used in crontabs to set variables.
Alternatives include:
declare -p array1 array2 > .bash_arrays # serialise to an intermediate file
BASH_ENV=.bash_arrays otherscript.sh # non-interactive startup script
Or, as a one-liner:
BASH_ENV=<(declare -p array1 array2) otherscript.sh
The last one uses process substitution to pass the output of the declare command as an rc script. (This method only works in bash-4.0 or later: earlier versions unconditionally fstat() rc files and use the size returned to read() the file in one go; a FIFO returns a size of 0, and so won't work as hoped.)
In a non-interactive shell (i.e. shell script) the file pointed to by the BASH_ENV variable is automatically sourced. You must make sure bash is correctly invoked, possibly using a shebang to invoke "bash" explicitly, and not #!/bin/sh as bash will not honour BASH_ENV when in historical/POSIX mode.
If all your array names happen to have a common prefix you can use declare -p ${!myprefix*} to expand a list of them, instead of enumerating them.
You probably should not attempt to export and re-import the entire bash environment using this method, some special bash variables and arrays are read-only, and there can be other side-effects when modifying special variables.
(You could also do something slightly disagreeable by serialising the array definition to an exportable variable, and using eval, but let's not encourage the use of eval ...
$ array=([1]=a [10]="b c")
$ export scalar_array=$(declare -p array)
$ bash # start a new shell
$ eval $scalar_array
$ declare -p array
declare -a array='([1]="a" [10]="b c")'
)
As referenced above, there's an interesting quirk: special support for exporting functions through the environment:
function myfoo() {
echo foo
}
with export -f or set +a to enable this behaviour, will result in this in the (process) environment, visible with printenv:
myfoo=() { echo foo
}
The variable is functionname (or functioname() for backward compatibility) and its value is () { functionbody }.
When a subsequent bash process starts it will recreate a function from each such environment variable. If you peek into the bash-4.2 source file variables.c you'll see variables starting with () { are handled specially. (Though creating a function using this syntax with declare -f is forbidden.) Update: The "shellshock" security issue is related to this feature, contemporary systems may disable automatic function import from the environment as a mitigation.
If you keep reading though, you'll see an #if 0 (or #if ARRAY_EXPORT) guarding code that checks variables starting with ([ and ending with ), and a comment stating "Array variables may not yet be exported". The good news is that in the current development version bash-4.3rc2 the ability to export indexed arrays (not associative) is enabled. This feature is not likely to be enabled, as noted above.
We can use this to create a function which restores any array data required:
% function sharearray() {
array1=(a b c d)
}
% export -f sharearray
% bash -c 'sharearray; echo ${array1[*]}'
So, similar to the previous approach, invoke the child script with:
bash -c "sharearray; . otherscript.sh"
Or, you can conditionally invoke the sharearray function in the child script by adding at some appropriate point:
declare -F sharearray >/dev/null && sharearray
Note there is no declare -a in the sharearray function, if you do that the array is implicitly local to the function, not what is wanted. bash-4.2 supports declare -g that makes a variable declared in a function into a global, so declare -ga can then be used. (Since associative arrays require a declare -A you won't be able to use this method for global associative arrays prior to bash-4.2, from v4.2 declare -Ag will work as hoped.) The GNU parallel documentation has useful variation on this method, see the discussion of --env in the man page.
Your question as phrased also indicates you may be having problems with export itself. You can export a name after you've created or modified it. "exportable" is a flag or property of a variable, for convenience you can also set and export in a single statement. Up to bash-4.2 export expects only a name, either a simple (scalar) variable or function name are supported.
Even if you could (in future) export arrays, exporting selected indexes (a slice) may not be supported (though since arrays are sparse there's no reason it could not be allowed). Though bash also supports the syntax declare -a name[0], the subscript is ignored, and "name" is simply a normal indexed array.
Jeez. I don't know why the other answers made this so complicated. Bash has nearly built-in support for this.
In the exporting script:
myArray=( ' foo"bar ' $'\n''\nbaz)' ) # an array with two nasty elements
myArray="${myArray[#]#Q}" ./importing_script.sh
(Note, the double quotes are necessary for correct handling of whitespace within array elements.)
Upon entry to importing_script.sh, the value of the myArray environment variable comprises these exact 26 bytes:
' foo"bar ' $'\n\\nbaz)'
Then the following will reconstitute the array:
eval "myArray=( ${myArray} )"
CAUTION! Do not eval like this if you cannot trust the source of the myArray environment variable. This trick exhibits the "Little Bobby Tables" vulnerability. Imagine if someone were to set the value of myArray to ) ; rm -rf / #.
The environment is just a collection of key-value pairs, both of which are character strings. A proper solution that works for any kind of array could either
Save each element in a different variable (e.g. MY_ARRAY_0=myArray[0]). Gets complicated because of the dynamic variable names.
Save the array in the file system (declare -p myArray >file).
Serialize all array elements into a single string.
These are covered in the other posts. If you know that your values never contain a certain character (for example |) and your keys are consecutive integers, you can simply save the array as a delimited list:
export MY_ARRAY=$(IFS='|'; echo "${myArray[*]}")
And restore it in the child process:
IFS='|'; myArray=($MY_ARRAY); unset IFS
Based on #mr.spuratic use of BASH_ENV, here I tunnel $# through script -f -c
script -c <command> <logfile> can be used to run a command inside another pty (and process group) but it cannot pass any structured arguments to <command>.
Instead <command> is a simple string to be an argument to the system library call.
I need to tunnel $# of the outer bash into $# of the bash invoked by script.
As declare -p cannot take #, here I use the magic bash variable _ (with a dummy first array value as that will get overwritten by bash). This saves me trampling on any important variables:
Proof of concept:
BASH_ENV=<( declare -a _=("" "$#") && declare -p _ ) bash -c 'set -- "${_[#]:1}" && echo "$#"'
"But," you say, "you are passing arguments to bash -- and indeed I am, but these are a simple string of known character. Here is use by script
SHELL=/bin/bash BASH_ENV=<( declare -a _=("" "$#") && declare -p _ && echo 'set -- "${_[#]:1}"') script -f -c 'echo "$#"' /tmp/logfile
which gives me this wrapper function in_pty:
in_pty() {
SHELL=/bin/bash BASH_ENV=<( declare -a _=("" "$#") && declare -p _ && echo 'set -- "${_[#]:1}"') script -f -c 'echo "$#"' /tmp/logfile
}
or this function-less wrapper as a composable string for Makefiles:
in_pty=bash -c 'SHELL=/bin/bash BASH_ENV=<( declare -a _=("" "$$#") && declare -p _ && echo '"'"'set -- "$${_[#]:1}"'"'"') script -qfc '"'"'"$$#"'"'"' /tmp/logfile' --
...
$(in_pty) test --verbose $# $^
I was editing a different post and made a mistake. Augh. Anyway, perhaps this might help?
https://stackoverflow.com/a/11944320/1594168
Note that because the shell's array format is undocumented on bash or any other shell's side,
it is very difficult to return a shell array in platform independent way.
You would have to check the version, and also craft a simple script that concatinates all
shell arrays into a file that other processes can resolve into.
However, if you know the name of the array you want to take back home then there is a way, while a bit dirty.
Lets say I have
MyAry[42]="whatever-stuff";
MyAry[55]="foo";
MyAry[99]="bar";
So I want to take it home
name_of_child=MyAry
take_me_home="`declare -p ${name_of_child}`";
export take_me_home="${take_me_home/#declare -a ${name_of_child}=/}"
We can see it being exported, by checking from a sub-process
echo ""|awk '{print "from awk =["ENVIRON["take_me_home"]"]"; }'
Result :
from awk =['([42]="whatever-stuff" [55]="foo" [99]="bar")']
If we absolutely must, use the env var to dump it.
env > some_tmp_file
Then
Before running the another script,
# This is the magic that does it all
source some_tmp_file
As lesmana reported, you cannot export arrays. So you have to serialize them before passing through the environment. This serialization useful other places too where only a string fits (su -c 'string', ssh host 'string'). The shortest code way to do this is to abuse 'getopt'
# preserve_array(arguments). return in _RET a string that can be expanded
# later to recreate positional arguments. They can be restored with:
# eval set -- "$_RET"
preserve_array() {
_RET=$(getopt --shell sh --options "" -- -- "$#") && _RET=${_RET# --}
}
# restore_array(name, payload)
restore_array() {
local name="$1" payload="$2"
eval set -- "$payload"
eval "unset $name && $name=("\$#")"
}
Use it like this:
foo=("1: &&& - *" "2: two" "3: %# abc" )
preserve_array "${foo[#]}"
foo_stuffed=${_RET}
restore_array newfoo "$foo_stuffed"
for elem in "${newfoo[#]}"; do echo "$elem"; done
## output:
# 1: &&& - *
# 2: two
# 3: %# abc
This does not address unset/sparse arrays.
You might be able to reduce the 2 'eval' calls in restore_array.
Although this question/answers are pretty old, this post seems to be the top hit when searching for "bash serialize array"
And, although the original question wasn't quite related to serializing/deserializing arrays, it does seem that the answers have devolved in that direction.
So with that ... I offer my solution:
Pros
All Core Bash Concepts
No Evals
No Sub-Commands
Cons
Functions take variable names as arguments (vs actual values)
Serializing requires having at least one character that is not present in the array
serialize_array.bash
# shellcheck shell=bash
##
# serialize_array
# Serializes a bash array to a string, with a configurable seperator.
#
# $1 = source varname ( contains array to be serialized )
# $2 = target varname ( will contian the serialized string )
# $3 = seperator ( optional, defaults to $'\x01' )
#
# example:
#
# my_arry=( one "two three" four )
# serialize_array my_array my_string '|'
# declare -p my_string
#
# result:
#
# declare -- my_string="one|two three|four"
#
function serialize_array() {
declare -n _array="${1}" _str="${2}" # _array, _str => local reference vars
local IFS="${3:-$'\x01'}"
# shellcheck disable=SC2034 # Reference vars assumed used by caller
_str="${_array[*]}" # * => join on IFS
}
##
# deserialize_array
# Deserializes a string into a bash array, with a configurable seperator.
#
# $1 = source varname ( contains string to be deserialized )
# $2 = target varname ( will contain the deserialized array )
# $3 = seperator ( optional, defaults to $'\x01' )
#
# example:
#
# my_string="one|two three|four"
# deserialize_array my_string my_array '|'
# declare -p my_array
#
# result:
#
# declare -a my_array=([0]="one" [1]="two three" [2]="four")
#
function deserialize_array() {
IFS="${3:-$'\x01'}" read -r -a "${2}" <<<"${!1}" # -a => split on IFS
}
NOTE: This is hosted as a gist here:
https://gist.github.com/TekWizely/c0259f25e18f2368c4a577495cd566cd
[edits]
Logic simplified after running through shellcheck + shfmt.
Added URL for hosted GIST
you (hi!) can use this, dont need writing a file, for ubuntu 12.04, bash 4.2.24
Also, your multiple lines array can be exported.
cat >>exportArray.sh
function FUNCarrayRestore() {
local l_arrayName=$1
local l_exportedArrayName=${l_arrayName}_exportedArray
# if set, recover its value to array
if eval '[[ -n ${'$l_exportedArrayName'+dummy} ]]'; then
eval $l_arrayName'='`eval 'echo $'$l_exportedArrayName` #do not put export here!
fi
}
export -f FUNCarrayRestore
function FUNCarrayFakeExport() {
local l_arrayName=$1
local l_exportedArrayName=${l_arrayName}_exportedArray
# prepare to be shown with export -p
eval 'export '$l_arrayName
# collect exportable array in string mode
local l_export=`export -p \
|grep "^declare -ax $l_arrayName=" \
|sed 's"^declare -ax '$l_arrayName'"export '$l_exportedArrayName'"'`
# creates exportable non array variable (at child shell)
eval "$l_export"
}
export -f FUNCarrayFakeExport
test this example on terminal bash (works with bash 4.2.24):
source exportArray.sh
list=(a b c)
FUNCarrayFakeExport list
bash
echo ${list[#]} #empty :(
FUNCarrayRestore list
echo ${list[#]} #profit! :D
I may improve it here
PS.: if someone clears/improve/makeItRunFaster I would like to know/see, thx! :D
For arrays with values without spaces, I've been using a simple set of functions to iterate through each array element and concatenate the array:
_arrayToStr(){
array=($#)
arrayString=""
for (( i=0; i<${#array[#]}; i++ )); do
if [[ $i == 0 ]]; then
arrayString="\"${array[i]}\""
else
arrayString="${arrayString} \"${array[i]}\""
fi
done
export arrayString="(${arrayString})"
}
_strToArray(){
str=$1
array=${str//\"/}
array=(${array//[()]/""})
export array=${array[#]}
}
The first function with turn the array into a string by adding the opening and closing parentheses and escaping all of the double quotation marks. The second function will strip the quotation marks and the parentheses and place them into a dummy array.
In order export the array, you would pass in all the elements of the original array:
array=(foo bar)
_arrayToStr ${array[#]}
At this point, the array has been exported into the value $arrayString. To import the array in the destination file, rename the array and do the opposite conversion:
_strToArray "$arrayName"
newArray=(${array[#]})
Much thanks to #stéphane-chazelas who pointed out all the problems with my previous attempts, this now seems to work to serialise an array to stdout or into a variable.
This technique does not shell-parse the input (unlike declare -a/declare -p) and so is safe against malicious insertion of metacharacters in the serialised text.
Note: newlines are not escaped, because read deletes the \<newlines> character pair, so -d ... must instead be passed to read, and then unescaped newlines are preserved.
All this is managed in the unserialise function.
Two magic characters are used, the field separator and the record separator (so that multiple arrays can be serialized to the same stream).
These characters can be defined as FS and RS but neither can be defined as newline character because an escaped newline is deleted by read.
The escape character must be \ the backslash, as that is what is used by read to avoid the character being recognized as an IFS character.
serialise will serialise "$#" to stdout, serialise_to will serialise to the varable named in $1
serialise() {
set -- "${#//\\/\\\\}" # \
set -- "${#//${FS:-;}/\\${FS:-;}}" # ; - our field separator
set -- "${#//${RS:-:}/\\${RS:-:}}" # ; - our record separator
local IFS="${FS:-;}"
printf ${SERIALIZE_TARGET:+-v"$SERIALIZE_TARGET"} "%s" "$*${RS:-:}"
}
serialise_to() {
SERIALIZE_TARGET="$1" serialise "${#:2}"
}
unserialise() {
local IFS="${FS:-;}"
if test -n "$2"
then read -d "${RS:-:}" -a "$1" <<<"${*:2}"
else read -d "${RS:-:}" -a "$1"
fi
}
and unserialise with:
unserialise data # read from stdin
or
unserialise data "$serialised_data" # from args
e.g.
$ serialise "Now is the time" "For all good men" "To drink \$drink" "At the \`party\`" $'Party\tParty\tParty'
Now is the time;For all good men;To drink $drink;At the `party`;Party Party Party:
(without a trailing newline)
read it back:
$ serialise_to s "Now is the time" "For all good men" "To drink \$drink" "At the \`party\`" $'Party\tParty\tParty'
$ unserialise array "$s"
$ echo "${array[#]/#/$'\n'}"
Now is the time
For all good men
To drink $drink
At the `party`
Party Party Party
or
unserialise array # read from stdin
Bash's read respects the escape character \ (unless you pass the -r flag) to remove special meaning of characters such as for input field separation or line delimiting.
If you want to serialise an array instead of a mere argument list then just pass your array as the argument list:
serialise_array "${my_array[#]}"
You can use unserialise in a loop like you would read because it is just a wrapped read - but remember that the stream is not newline separated:
while unserialise array
do ...
done
I've wrote my own functions for this and improved the method with the IFS:
Features:
Doesn't call to $(...) and so doesn't spawn another bash shell process
Serializes ? and | characters into ?00 and ?01 sequences and back, so can be used over array with these characters
Handles the line return characters between serialization/deserialization as other characters
Tested in cygwin bash 3.2.48 and Linux bash 4.3.48
function tkl_declare_global()
{
eval "$1=\"\$2\"" # right argument does NOT evaluate
}
function tkl_declare_global_array()
{
local IFS=$' \t\r\n' # just in case, workaround for the bug in the "[#]:i" expression under the bash version lower than 4.1
eval "$1=(\"\${#:2}\")"
}
function tkl_serialize_array()
{
local __array_var="$1"
local __out_var="$2"
[[ -z "$__array_var" ]] && return 1
[[ -z "$__out_var" ]] && return 2
local __array_var_size
eval declare "__array_var_size=\${#$__array_var[#]}"
(( ! __array_var_size )) && { tkl_declare_global $__out_var ''; return 0; }
local __escaped_array_str=''
local __index
local __value
for (( __index=0; __index < __array_var_size; __index++ )); do
eval declare "__value=\"\${$__array_var[__index]}\""
__value="${__value//\?/?00}"
__value="${__value//|/?01}"
__escaped_array_str="$__escaped_array_str${__escaped_array_str:+|}$__value"
done
tkl_declare_global $__out_var "$__escaped_array_str"
return 0
}
function tkl_deserialize_array()
{
local __serialized_array="$1"
local __out_var="$2"
[[ -z "$__out_var" ]] && return 1
(( ! ${#__serialized_array} )) && { tkl_declare_global $__out_var ''; return 0; }
local IFS='|'
local __deserialized_array=($__serialized_array)
tkl_declare_global_array $__out_var
local __index=0
local __value
for __value in "${__deserialized_array[#]}"; do
__value="${__value//\?01/|}"
__value="${__value//\?00/?}"
tkl_declare_global $__out_var[__index] "$__value"
(( __index++ ))
done
return 0
}
Example:
a=($'1 \n 2' "3\"4'" 5 '|' '?')
tkl_serialize_array a b
tkl_deserialize_array "$b" c
I think you can try it this way (by sourcing your script after export):
export myArray=(Hello World)
. yourScript.sh