Due to the limitation of 9 parameters in a script, my objective is to pass about 30 strings bundled in an array from calling script (scriptA) to called script (scriptB).
My scriptA looks something like this...
#!/bin/bash
declare -a arr=( ab "c d" 123 "string with spaces" 456 )
. ./scriptB.sh "Task Name" "${arr[#]}"
My scriptB looks something like this...
#!/bin/bash
arg1="$1"
shift
arg2=("$#")
read -a arr1 <<< "$#"
j=0
for i in "${arr1[#]}"; do
#echo ${arr1[j]}
((j++))
case "$j" in
"1")
param1="${i//(}"
echo "$j=$param1"
;;
"2")
param2="${i}"
echo "$j=$param2"
;;
"3")
param3="${i}"
echo "$j=$param3"
;;
"4")
param4="${i}"
echo "$j=$param4"
;;
"5")
param5="${i//)}"
echo "$j=$param5"
;;
esac
done
OUTPUT:
1=ab
2=c
3=d
4=123
5=string
Problem:
1. I see parenthesis ( and ) gets added to the string which I have to strip them out
2. I see an array element (with spaces) though quoted under double quotes get to interpreted as separate elements by spaces.
read -a arr1 <<< "$#"
is wrong. The "$#" here is equal to "$*", and then read will split the input on whitespaces (spaces, tabs and newlines) and also interpret \ slashes and assign the result to array arr1. Remember to use read -r.
Do:
arr1=("$#")
to assign to an array. Then you could print with:
for ((i=1;i<${#arr1};++i)); do
printf "%d=%s\n" "$i" "${arr1[$i]}"
done
of 9 parameters in a script, my objective is to pass about 30 strings bundled in an array from calling script (scriptA)
Ok. But "${arr[#]}" is passing multiple arguments anyway. If you want to pass array as string, pass it as a string (note that eval is evil):
arr=( ab "c d" 123 "string with spaces" 456 )
./scriptB.sh "Task Name" "$(declare -p arr)"
# Then inside scriptB.sh, re-evaulate parameter 2:
eval "$2" # assigns to arr
Note that the scriptB.sh is sourced in your example, so passing arguments.... makes no sense anyway.
I see an array element (with spaces) though quoted under double quotes get to interpreted as separate elements by spaces
Yes, because you interpreted the content with read, which splits the input on characters in IFS, which by default is set to space, tab and newline. You could print arguments on separate lines and change IFS accordingly:
IFS=$'\n' read -r -a arr1 < <(printf "%s\n" "$#")
or even use a zero terminated string:
mapfile -t -d '' arr1 < <(printf "%s\0" "$#")
but those are just fancy and useless ways of writing arr1=("$#").
Note that in your code snipped, arg2 is an array.
I need to remove an element from an array in bash shell.
Generally I'd simply do:
array=("${(#)array:#<element to remove>}")
Unfortunately the element I want to remove is a variable so I can't use the previous command.
Down here an example:
array+=(pluto)
array+=(pippo)
delete=(pluto)
array( ${array[#]/$delete} ) -> but clearly doesn't work because of {}
Any idea?
The following works as you would like in bash and zsh:
$ array=(pluto pippo)
$ delete=pluto
$ echo ${array[#]/$delete}
pippo
$ array=( "${array[#]/$delete}" ) #Quotes when working with strings
If need to delete more than one element:
...
$ delete=(pluto pippo)
for del in ${delete[#]}
do
array=("${array[#]/$del}") #Quotes when working with strings
done
Caveat
This technique actually removes prefixes matching $delete from the elements, not necessarily whole elements.
Update
To really remove an exact item, you need to walk through the array, comparing the target to each element, and using unset to delete an exact match.
array=(pluto pippo bob)
delete=(pippo)
for target in "${delete[#]}"; do
for i in "${!array[#]}"; do
if [[ ${array[i]} = $target ]]; then
unset 'array[i]'
fi
done
done
Note that if you do this, and one or more elements is removed, the indices will no longer be a continuous sequence of integers.
$ declare -p array
declare -a array=([0]="pluto" [2]="bob")
The simple fact is, arrays were not designed for use as mutable data structures. They are primarily used for storing lists of items in a single variable without needing to waste a character as a delimiter (e.g., to store a list of strings which can contain whitespace).
If gaps are a problem, then you need to rebuild the array to fill the gaps:
for i in "${!array[#]}"; do
new_array+=( "${array[i]}" )
done
array=("${new_array[#]}")
unset new_array
You could build up a new array without the undesired element, then assign it back to the old array. This works in bash:
array=(pluto pippo)
new_array=()
for value in "${array[#]}"
do
[[ $value != pluto ]] && new_array+=($value)
done
array=("${new_array[#]}")
unset new_array
This yields:
echo "${array[#]}"
pippo
This is the most direct way to unset a value if you know it's position.
$ array=(one two three)
$ echo ${#array[#]}
3
$ unset 'array[1]'
$ echo ${array[#]}
one three
$ echo ${#array[#]}
2
This answer is specific to the case of deleting multiple values from large arrays, where performance is important.
The most voted solutions are (1) pattern substitution on an array, or (2) iterating over the array elements. The first is fast, but can only deal with elements that have distinct prefix, the second has O(n*k), n=array size, k=elements to remove. Associative array are relative new feature, and might not have been common when the question was originally posted.
For the exact match case, with large n and k, possible to improve performance from O(nk) to O(n+klog(k)). In practice, O(n) assuming k much lower than n. Most of the speed up is based on using associative array to identify items to be removed.
Performance (n-array size, k-values to delete). Performance measure seconds of user time
N K New(seconds) Current(seconds) Speedup
1000 10 0.005 0.033 6X
10000 10 0.070 0.348 5X
10000 20 0.070 0.656 9X
10000 1 0.043 0.050 -7%
As expected, the current solution is linear to N*K, and the fast solution is practically linear to K, with much lower constant. The fast solution is slightly slower vs the current solution when k=1, due to additional setup.
The 'Fast' solution: array=list of input, delete=list of values to remove.
declare -A delk
for del in "${delete[#]}" ; do delk[$del]=1 ; done
# Tag items to remove, based on
for k in "${!array[#]}" ; do
[ "${delk[${array[$k]}]-}" ] && unset 'array[k]'
done
# Compaction
array=("${array[#]}")
Benchmarked against current solution, from the most-voted answer.
for target in "${delete[#]}"; do
for i in "${!array[#]}"; do
if [[ ${array[i]} = $target ]]; then
unset 'array[i]'
fi
done
done
array=("${array[#]}")
Here's a one-line solution with mapfile:
$ mapfile -d $'\0' -t arr < <(printf '%s\0' "${arr[#]}" | grep -Pzv "<regexp>")
Example:
$ arr=("Adam" "Bob" "Claire"$'\n'"Smith" "David" "Eve" "Fred")
$ echo "Size: ${#arr[*]} Contents: ${arr[*]}"
Size: 6 Contents: Adam Bob Claire
Smith David Eve Fred
$ mapfile -d $'\0' -t arr < <(printf '%s\0' "${arr[#]}" | grep -Pzv "^Claire\nSmith$")
$ echo "Size: ${#arr[*]} Contents: ${arr[*]}"
Size: 5 Contents: Adam Bob David Eve Fred
This method allows for great flexibility by modifying/exchanging the grep command and doesn't leave any empty strings in the array.
Partial answer only
To delete the first item in the array
unset 'array[0]'
To delete the last item in the array
unset 'array[-1]'
To expand on the above answers, the following can be used to remove multiple elements from an array, without partial matching:
ARRAY=(one two onetwo three four threefour "one six")
TO_REMOVE=(one four)
TEMP_ARRAY=()
for pkg in "${ARRAY[#]}"; do
for remove in "${TO_REMOVE[#]}"; do
KEEP=true
if [[ ${pkg} == ${remove} ]]; then
KEEP=false
break
fi
done
if ${KEEP}; then
TEMP_ARRAY+=(${pkg})
fi
done
ARRAY=("${TEMP_ARRAY[#]}")
unset TEMP_ARRAY
This will result in an array containing:
(two onetwo three threefour "one six")
Here's a (probably very bash-specific) little function involving bash variable indirection and unset; it's a general solution that does not involve text substitution or discarding empty elements and has no problems with quoting/whitespace etc.
delete_ary_elmt() {
local word=$1 # the element to search for & delete
local aryref="$2[#]" # a necessary step since '${!$2[#]}' is a syntax error
local arycopy=("${!aryref}") # create a copy of the input array
local status=1
for (( i = ${#arycopy[#]} - 1; i >= 0; i-- )); do # iterate over indices backwards
elmt=${arycopy[$i]}
[[ $elmt == $word ]] && unset "$2[$i]" && status=0 # unset matching elmts in orig. ary
done
return $status # return 0 if something was deleted; 1 if not
}
array=(a 0 0 b 0 0 0 c 0 d e 0 0 0)
delete_ary_elmt 0 array
for e in "${array[#]}"; do
echo "$e"
done
# prints "a" "b" "c" "d" in lines
Use it like delete_ary_elmt ELEMENT ARRAYNAME without any $ sigil. Switch the == $word for == $word* for prefix matches; use ${elmt,,} == ${word,,} for case-insensitive matches; etc., whatever bash [[ supports.
It works by determining the indices of the input array and iterating over them backwards (so deleting elements doesn't screw up iteration order). To get the indices you need to access the input array by name, which can be done via bash variable indirection x=1; varname=x; echo ${!varname} # prints "1".
You can't access arrays by name like aryname=a; echo "${$aryname[#]}, this gives you an error. You can't do aryname=a; echo "${!aryname[#]}", this gives you the indices of the variable aryname (although it is not an array). What DOES work is aryref="a[#]"; echo "${!aryref}", which will print the elements of the array a, preserving shell-word quoting and whitespace exactly like echo "${a[#]}". But this only works for printing the elements of an array, not for printing its length or indices (aryref="!a[#]" or aryref="#a[#]" or "${!!aryref}" or "${#!aryref}", they all fail).
So I copy the original array by its name via bash indirection and get the indices from the copy. To iterate over the indices in reverse I use a C-style for loop. I could also do it by accessing the indices via ${!arycopy[#]} and reversing them with tac, which is a cat that turns around the input line order.
A function solution without variable indirection would probably have to involve eval, which may or may not be safe to use in that situation (I can't tell).
Using unset
To remove an element at particular index, we can use unset and then do copy to another array. Only just unset is not required in this case. Because unset does not remove the element it just sets null string to the particular index in array.
declare -a arr=('aa' 'bb' 'cc' 'dd' 'ee')
unset 'arr[1]'
declare -a arr2=()
i=0
for element in "${arr[#]}"
do
arr2[$i]=$element
((++i))
done
echo "${arr[#]}"
echo "1st val is ${arr[1]}, 2nd val is ${arr[2]}"
echo "${arr2[#]}"
echo "1st val is ${arr2[1]}, 2nd val is ${arr2[2]}"
Output is
aa cc dd ee
1st val is , 2nd val is cc
aa cc dd ee
1st val is cc, 2nd val is dd
Using :<idx>
We can remove some set of elements using :<idx> also. For example if we want to remove 1st element we can use :1 as mentioned below.
declare -a arr=('aa' 'bb' 'cc' 'dd' 'ee')
arr2=("${arr[#]:1}")
echo "${arr2[#]}"
echo "1st val is ${arr2[1]}, 2nd val is ${arr2[2]}"
Output is
bb cc dd ee
1st val is cc, 2nd val is dd
http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/pe#substring_removal
${PARAMETER#PATTERN} # remove from beginning
${PARAMETER##PATTERN} # remove from the beginning, greedy match
${PARAMETER%PATTERN} # remove from the end
${PARAMETER%%PATTERN} # remove from the end, greedy match
In order to do a full remove element, you have to do an unset command with an if statement. If you don't care about removing prefixes from other variables or about supporting whitespace in the array, then you can just drop the quotes and forget about for loops.
See example below for a few different ways to clean up an array.
options=("foo" "bar" "foo" "foobar" "foo bar" "bars" "bar")
# remove bar from the start of each element
options=("${options[#]/#"bar"}")
# options=("foo" "" "foo" "foobar" "foo bar" "s" "")
# remove the complete string "foo" in a for loop
count=${#options[#]}
for ((i = 0; i < count; i++)); do
if [ "${options[i]}" = "foo" ] ; then
unset 'options[i]'
fi
done
# options=( "" "foobar" "foo bar" "s" "")
# remove empty options
# note the count variable can't be recalculated easily on a sparse array
for ((i = 0; i < count; i++)); do
# echo "Element $i: '${options[i]}'"
if [ -z "${options[i]}" ] ; then
unset 'options[i]'
fi
done
# options=("foobar" "foo bar" "s")
# list them with select
echo "Choose an option:"
PS3='Option? '
select i in "${options[#]}" Quit
do
case $i in
Quit) break ;;
*) echo "You selected \"$i\"" ;;
esac
done
Output
Choose an option:
1) foobar
2) foo bar
3) s
4) Quit
Option?
Hope that helps.
There is also this syntax, e.g. if you want to delete the 2nd element :
array=("${array[#]:0:1}" "${array[#]:2}")
which is in fact the concatenation of 2 tabs. The first from the index 0 to the index 1 (exclusive) and the 2nd from the index 2 to the end.
POSIX shell script does not have arrays.
So most probably you are using a specific dialect such as bash, korn shells or zsh.
Therefore, your question as of now cannot be answered.
Maybe this works for you:
unset array[$delete]
What I do is:
array="$(echo $array | tr ' ' '\n' | sed "/itemtodelete/d")"
BAM, that item is removed.
This is a quick-and-dirty solution that will work in simple cases but will break if (a) there are regex special characters in $delete, or (b) there are any spaces at all in any items. Starting with:
array+=(pluto)
array+=(pippo)
delete=(pluto)
Delete all entries exactly matching $delete:
array=(`echo $array | fmt -1 | grep -v "^${delete}$" | fmt -999999`)
resulting in
echo $array -> pippo, and making sure it's an array:
echo $array[1] -> pippo
fmt is a little obscure: fmt -1 wraps at the first column (to put each item on its own line. That's where the problem arises with items in spaces.) fmt -999999 unwraps it back to one line, putting back the spaces between items. There are other ways to do that, such as xargs.
Addendum: If you want to delete just the first match, use sed, as described here:
array=(`echo $array | fmt -1 | sed "0,/^${delete}$/{//d;}" | fmt -999999`)
Actually, I just noticed that the shell syntax somewhat has a behavior built-in that allows for easy reconstruction of the array when, as posed in the question, an item should be removed.
# let's set up an array of items to consume:
x=()
for (( i=0; i<10; i++ )); do
x+=("$i")
done
# here, we consume that array:
while (( ${#x[#]} )); do
i=$(( $RANDOM % ${#x[#]} ))
echo "${x[i]} / ${x[#]}"
x=("${x[#]:0:i}" "${x[#]:i+1}")
done
Notice how we constructed the array using bash's x+=() syntax?
You could actually add more than one item with that, the content of a whole other array at once.
In ZSH this is dead easy (note this uses more bash compatible syntax than necessary where possible for ease of understanding):
# I always include an edge case to make sure each element
# is not being word split.
start=(one two three 'four 4' five)
work=(${(#)start})
idx=2
val=${work[idx]}
# How to remove a single element easily.
# Also works for associative arrays (at least in zsh)
work[$idx]=()
echo "Array size went down by one: "
[[ $#work -eq $(($#start - 1)) ]] && echo "OK"
echo "Array item "$val" is now gone: "
[[ -z ${work[(r)$val]} ]] && echo OK
echo "Array contents are as expected: "
wanted=("${start[#]:0:1}" "${start[#]:2}")
[[ "${(j.:.)wanted[#]}" == "${(j.:.)work[#]}" ]] && echo "OK"
echo "-- array contents: start --"
print -l -r -- "-- $#start elements" ${(#)start}
echo "-- array contents: work --"
print -l -r -- "-- $#work elements" "${work[#]}"
Results:
Array size went down by one:
OK
Array item two is now gone:
OK
Array contents are as expected:
OK
-- array contents: start --
-- 5 elements
one
two
three
four 4
five
-- array contents: work --
-- 4 elements
one
three
four 4
five
To avoid conflicts with array index using unset - see https://stackoverflow.com/a/49626928/3223785 and https://stackoverflow.com/a/47798640/3223785 for more information - reassign the array to itself: ARRAY_VAR=(${ARRAY_VAR[#]}).
#!/bin/bash
ARRAY_VAR=(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
unset ARRAY_VAR[5]
unset ARRAY_VAR[4]
ARRAY_VAR=(${ARRAY_VAR[#]})
echo ${ARRAY_VAR[#]}
A_LENGTH=${#ARRAY_VAR[*]}
for (( i=0; i<=$(( $A_LENGTH -1 )); i++ )) ; do
echo ""
echo "INDEX - $i"
echo "VALUE - ${ARRAY_VAR[$i]}"
done
exit 0
[Ref.: https://tecadmin.net/working-with-array-bash-script/ ]
How about something like:
array=(one two three)
array_t=" ${array[#]} "
delete=one
array=(${array_t// $delete / })
unset array_t
#/bin/bash
echo "# define array with six elements"
arr=(zero one two three 'four 4' five)
echo "# unset by index: 0"
unset -v 'arr[0]'
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
arr_delete_by_content() { # value to delete
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do
[ "${arr[$i]}" = "$1" ] && unset -v 'arr[$i]'
done
}
echo "# unset in global variable where value: three"
arr_delete_by_content three
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
echo "# rearrange indices"
arr=( "${arr[#]}" )
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
delete_value() { # value arrayelements..., returns array decl.
local e val=$1; new=(); shift
for e in "${#}"; do [ "$val" != "$e" ] && new+=("$e"); done
declare -p new|sed 's,^[^=]*=,,'
}
echo "# new array without value: two"
declare -a arr="$(delete_value two "${arr[#]}")"
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
delete_values() { # arraydecl values..., returns array decl. (keeps indices)
declare -a arr="$1"; local i v; shift
for v in "${#}"; do
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do
[ "$v" = "${arr[$i]}" ] && unset -v 'arr[$i]'
done
done
declare -p arr|sed 's,^[^=]*=,,'
}
echo "# new array without values: one five (keep indices)"
declare -a arr="$(delete_values "$(declare -p arr|sed 's,^[^=]*=,,')" one five)"
for i in ${!arr[*]}; do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
# new array without multiple values and rearranged indices is left to the reader
Given an array (in Bash), is there a command that prints the contents of the array according to indices?
Something like that: arr[0]=... , arr[1]=... ,...
I know that I can print it in a for loop, but I am looking for a command that does it.
Given an array with contiguous indices starting at 0:
$ arr=(one two three)
And non-contiguous indices:
$ declare -a arr2='([0]="one" [2]="two" [5]="three")'
You can print the values:
$ echo ${arr[*]} # same with arr2
one two three
Or, use a C style loop for arr:
$ for (( i=0;i<${#arr[#]};i++ )); do echo "arr[$i]=${arr[$i]}"; done
arr[0]=one
arr[1]=two
arr[2]=three
But that won't work for arr2.
So, you can expand the indices (contiguous or not) and print index, value like so:
$ for i in "${!arr2[#]}"; do echo "arr2[$i]=${arr2[$i]}"; done
arr2[0]=one
arr2[2]=two
arr2[5]=three
Or inspect it with declare -p:
$ declare -p arr
declare -a arr='([0]="one" [1]="two" [2]="three")'
Which also works if the array has non-contiguous indices (where the C loop would break):
$ declare -p arr2
declare -a arr2='([0]="one" [2]="two" [5]="three")'
Note: A common mistake is to use the sigil $ and thinking you are addressing that array or named value. It is the unadorned name that is used since the sigil will dereference and tell details of the name contained instead of that name:
$ k=arr
$ declare -p $k
declare -a arr='([0]="one" [1]="two" [2]="three")' # note this is 'arr' , not 'k'
$ declare -p k
declare -- k="arr"
Since declare with no arguments will print the entire Bash environment at that moment, you can also use utilities such as sed grep or awk against that output:
$ declare | grep 'arr'
arr=([0]="one" [1]="two" [2]="three")
k=arr
With bash, it is possible to store an array in a dictionary? I have shown some sample code of fetching an array from the dictionary but it seems to lose the fact that it is an array.
I expect it is the dict+=(["pos"]="${array[#]}") command but am unsure of how to do this or if it is even possible.
# Normal array behaviour (just an example)
array=(1 2 3)
for a in "${array[#]}"
do
echo "$a"
done
# Outputs:
# 1
# 2
# 3
# Array in a dictionary
declare -A dict
dict+=(["pos"]="${array[#]}")
# When I fetch the array, it is not an array anymore
posarray=("${dict[pos]}")
for a in "${posarray[#]}"
do
echo "$a"
done
# Outputs:
# 1 2 3
# but I want
# 1
# 2
# 3
No, but there are workarounds.
Using printf '%q ' + eval
You can flatten your array into a string:
printf -v array_str '%q ' "${array[#]}"
dict["pos"]=$array_str
...and then use eval to expand that array back:
# WARNING: Only safe if array was populated with eval-safe strings, as from printf %q
key=pos; dest=array
printf -v array_cmd "%q=( %s )" "$dest" "${dict[$key]}"
eval "$array_cmd"
Note that this is only safe if your associative array is populated through the code using printf '%q ' to escape the values before they're added; content that avoids this process is potentially unsafe to eval.
Using base64 encoding
Slower but safer (if you can't prevent modification of your dictionary's contents by untrusted code), another approach is to store a base64-encoded NUL-delimited list:
dict["pos"]=$(printf '%s\0' "${array[#]}" | openssl enc base64)
...and read it out the same way:
array=( )
while IFS= read -r -d '' item; do
array+=( "$item" )
done < <(openssl enc -d base64 <<<"${dict["pos"]}"
Using Multiple Variables + Indirect Expansion
This one's actually symmetric, though it requires bash 4.3 or newer. That said, it restricts your key names to those which are permissible as shell variable names.
key=pos
array=( "first value" "second value" )
printf -v var_name 'dict_%q' "$key"
declare -n var="$var_name"
var=( "${array[#]}" )
unset -n var
...whereafter declare -p dict_pos will emit declare -a dict_pos=([0]="first value" [1]="second value"). On the other end, for retrieval:
key=pos
printf -v var_name 'dict_%q' "$key"
declare -n var="$var_name"
array=( "${var[#]}" )
unset -n var
...whereafter declare -p array will emit declare -a array=([0]="first value" [1]="second value").
Dictionaries are associative arrays, so the question rephrased is: "Is it possible to store an array inside another array?"
No, it's not. Arrays cannot be nested.
dict+=(["pos"]="${array[#]}")
For this to work you'd need an extra set of parentheses to capture the value as an array and not a string:
dict+=(["pos"]=("${array[#]}"))
But that's not legal syntax.
I have to work with an output of a Java tool, which returns a map data structure that looks like HashMap<String, ArrayList<String>. I have to work with BASH and i tried to declare it as an associative array, what is very similar to a map. The declaration of the associative array in bash should be in one line, i try to do this as following.
ARRAY=(["sem1"]=("first name" "second name") ["sem2"]=("third name") ["sem3]=OTHER_LITS)
But this creates the following error:
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('
I can define this line by line, but i want to have it in one line. How can i define a assoviative array in bash in only one line?
BTW, associative array, dictionary or map - all come into the one abstract data type (let's call it a dictionary).
So, here is the solution for storing array as values in the dictionary of Bash (4+ version).
Note, that array in Bash is a space delimited list of strings (so no any spaces inside the element, i.e. string), so we could write a quoted list:
"firstname middlename secondname"
as a value of the s1 key in our X dictionary:
declare -A X=(
['s1']="firstname middlename secondname"
['s2']="surname nickname"
['s3']="other"
)
Now we can get the value of the s1 key as array:
declare -a names=(${X[s1]})
Variable names now contains array:
> echo $names
firstname
> echo ${names[1]}
middlename
> echo ${#names[#]}
3
Finally, your question part where the strings with spaces were shown:
"first name", "second name"
Let's do a trick - represent a space as a special symbol sequence (it could be just one symbol), for example, double underscores:
"first__name", "second__name"
Declare our dictionary again, but with "escaped" spaces inside array elements:
declare -A X=(
['s1']="first__name middle__name second__name"
['s2']="surname nickname"
['s3']="other"
)
In this case after we get the value of the s1 key as array:
declare -a names=(${X[s1]})
We need to post process our array elements to remove __ the space-replacements to the actual space symbols. To do this we simply use replace commands of Bash strings:
> echo ${names/__/ }
first name
> echo ${names[1]/__/ }
middle name
> echo ${#names[#]}
3
In the absence of multi-dimensional array support in BASH, you can use this word-around associative array. Each key in the associative array is string concatenation of map-index,array-list-index:
# use one line declaration
declare -A array=([sem1,0]="first name" [sem1,1]="second name" [sem2,0]="third name" [sem3,0]="foo bar")
# loop thrpugh the map array
for i in "${!array[#]}"; do echo "$i => ${array[$i]}"; done
sem2,0 => third name
sem1,0 => first name
sem1,1 => second name
sem3,0 => foo bar
A more ergonomic solution that doesn't force the manipulation of the keys.
# your data with spaces
array=(1 '2 with space' 3 "4 with space and ' symbol")
declare -p array
# quote it with " and store it, your data can't contain double quote
declare -A associative=([x]=x [array]=$(printf '"%s" ' "${array[#]}"))
declare -p associative
# get your data in another array
eval deserialized_array=(${associative[array]})
declare -p deserialized_array
echo ${deserialized_array[3]}
# or let bash handle everything
# note: array contain data with double quote character
array=(1 '2 with space' 3 "4 with space and ' \" symbol")
declare -A associative=([x]=x [array]=$(declare -p array))
declare -p associative
array=() # make sure data is gone
# get the data in the same array
eval ${associative[array]}
echo ${array[3]}