While I've handled this task in other languages easily, I'm at a loss for which commands to use when Shell Scripting (CentOS/BASH)
I have some regex that provides many matches in a file I've read to a variable, and would like to take the regex matches to an array to loop over and process each entry.
Regex I typically use https://regexr.com/ to form my capture groups, and throw that to JS/Python/Go to get an array and loop - but in Shell Scripting, not sure what I can use.
So far I've played with "sed" to find all matches and replace, but don't know if it's capable of returning an array to loop from matches.
Take regex, run on file, get array back. I would love some help with Shell Scripting for this task.
EDIT:
Based on comments, put this together (not working via shellcheck.net):
#!/bin/sh
examplefile="
asset('1a/1b/1c.ext')
asset('2a/2b/2c.ext')
asset('3a/3b/3c.ext')
"
examplearr=($(sed 'asset\((.*)\)' $examplefile))
for el in ${!examplearr[*]}
do
echo "${examplearr[$el]}"
done
This works in bash on a mac:
#!/bin/sh
examplefile="
asset('1a/1b/1c.ext')
asset('2a/2b/2c.ext')
asset('3a/3b/3c.ext')
"
examplearr=(`echo "$examplefile" | sed -e '/.*/s/asset(\(.*\))/\1/'`)
for el in ${examplearr[*]}; do
echo "$el"
done
output:
'1a/1b/1c.ext'
'2a/2b/2c.ext'
'3a/3b/3c.ext'
Note the wrapping of $examplefile in quotes, and the use of sed to replace the entire line with the match. If there will be other content in the file, either on the same lines as the "asset" string or in other lines with no assets at all you can refine it like this:
#!/bin/sh
examplefile="
fooasset('1a/1b/1c.ext')
asset('2a/2b/2c.ext')bar
foobar
fooasset('3a/3b/3c.ext')bar
"
examplearr=(`echo "$examplefile" | grep asset | sed -e '/.*/s/^.*asset(\(.*\)).*$/\1/'`)
for el in ${examplearr[*]}; do
echo "$el"
done
and achieve the same result.
There are several ways to do this. I'd do with GNU grep with perl-compatible regex (ah, delightful line noise):
mapfile -t examplearr < <(grep -oP '(?<=[(]).*?(?=[)])' <<<"$examplefile")
for i in "${!examplearr[#]}"; do printf "%d\t%s\n" $i "${examplearr[i]}"; done
0 '1a/1b/1c.ext'
1 '2a/2b/2c.ext'
2 '3a/3b/3c.ext'
This uses the bash mapfile command to read lines from stdin and assign them to an array.
The bits you're missing from the sed command:
$examplefile is text, not a filename, so you have to send to to sed's stdin
sed's a funny little language with 1-character commands: you've given it the "a" command, which is inappropriate in this case.
you only want to output the captured parts of the matches, not every line, so you need the -n option, and you need to print somewhere: the p flag in s///p means "print the [line] if a substitution was made".
sed -n 's/asset\(([^)]*)\)/\1/p' <<<"$examplefile"
# or
echo "$examplefile" | sed -n 's/asset\(([^)]*)\)/\1/p'
Note that this returns values like ('1a/1b/1c.ext') -- with the parentheses. If you don't want them, add the -r or -E option to sed: among other things, that flips the meaning of ( and \(
Trying to figure out how to include all .txt files except one called manifest.txt.
FILES=(path/to/*.txt)
You can use extended glob patterns for this:
shopt -s extglob
files=(path/to/!(manifest).txt)
The !(pattern-list) pattern matches "anything except one of the given patterns".
Note that this exactly excludes manifest.txt and nothing else; mmanifest.txt, for example, would still go in to the array.
As a side note: a glob that matches nothing at all expands to itself (see the manual and this question). This behaviour can be changed using the nullglob (expand to empty string) and failglob (print error message) shell options.
You can build the array one file at a time, avoiding the file you do not want :
declare -a files=()
for file in /path/to/files/*
do
! [[ -e "$file" ]] || [[ "$file" = */manifest.txt ]] || files+=("$file")
done
Please note that globbing in the for statement does not cause problems with whitespace (even newlines) in filenames.
EDIT
I added a test for file existence to handle the case where the glob fails and the nullglob option is not set.
I think this is best handled with an associative array even if just one element.
Consider:
$ touch f{1..6}.txt manifest.txt
$ ls *.txt
f1.txt f3.txt f5.txt manifest.txt
f2.txt f4.txt f6.txt
You can create an associative array for the names you wish to exclude:
declare -A exclude
for f in f1.txt f5.txt manifest.txt; do
exclude[$f]=1
done
Then add files to an array that are not in the associative array:
files=()
for fn in *.txt; do
[[ ${exclude[$fn]} ]] && continue
files+=("$fn")
done
$ echo "${files[#]}"
f2.txt f3.txt f4.txt f6.txt
This approach allows any number of exclusions from the list of files.
FILES=($(ls /path/to/*.txt | grep -wv '^manifest.txt$'))
I am writing a bash function to get all git repositories, but I have met a problem when I want to store all the git repository pathnames to the array patharray. Here is the code:
gitrepo() {
local opt
declare -a patharray
locate -b '\.git' | \
while read pathname
do
pathname="$(dirname ${pathname})"
if [[ "${pathname}" != *.* ]]; then
# Note: how to add an element to an existing Bash Array
patharray=("${patharray[#]}" '\n' "${pathname}")
# echo -e ${patharray[#]}
fi
done
echo -e ${patharray[#]}
}
I want to save all the repository paths to the patharray array, but I can't get it outside the pipeline which is comprised of locate and while command.
But I can get the array in the pipeline command, the commented command # echo -e ${patharray[#]} works well if uncommented, so how can I solve the problem?
And I have tried the export command, however it seems that it can't pass the patharray to the pipeline.
Bash runs all commands of a pipeline in separate SubShells. When a subshell containing a while loop ends, all changes you made to the patharray variable are lost.
You can simply group the while loop and the echo statement together so they are both contained within the same subshell:
gitrepo() {
local pathname dir
local -a patharray
locate -b '\.git' | { # the grouping begins here
while read pathname; do
pathname=$(dirname "$pathname")
if [[ "$pathname" != *.* ]]; then
patharray+=( "$pathname" ) # add the element to the array
fi
done
printf "%s\n" "${patharray[#]}" # all those quotes are needed
} # the grouping ends here
}
Alternately, you can structure your code to not need a pipe: use ProcessSubstitution
( Also see the Bash manual for details - man bash | less +/Process\ Substitution):
gitrepo() {
local pathname dir
local -a patharray
while read pathname; do
pathname=$(dirname "$pathname")
if [[ "$pathname" != *.* ]]; then
patharray+=( "$pathname" ) # add the element to the array
fi
done < <(locate -b '\.git')
printf "%s\n" "${patharray[#]}" # all those quotes are needed
}
First of all, appending to an array variable is better done with array[${#array[*]}]="value" or array+=("value1" "value2" "etc") unless you wish to transform the entire array (which you don't).
Now, since pipeline commands are run in subprocesses, changes made to a variable inside a pipeline command will not propagate to outside it. There are a few options to get around this (most are listed in Greg's BashFAQ/024):
pass the result through stdout instead
the simplest; you'll need to do that anyway to get the value from the function (although there are ways to return a proper variable)
any special characters in paths can be handled reliably by using \0 as a separator (see Capturing output of find . -print0 into a bash array for reading \0-separated lists)
locate -b0 '\.git' | while read -r -d '' pathname; do dirname -z "$pathname"; done
or simply
locate -b0 '\.git' | xargs -0 dirname -z
avoid running the loop in a subprocess
avoid pipeline at all
temporary file/FIFO (bad: requires manual cleanup, accessible to others)
temporary variable (mediocre: unnecessary memory overhead)
process substitution (a special, syntax-supported case of FIFO, doesn't require manual cleanup; code adapted from Greg's BashFAQ/020):
i=0 #`unset i` will error on `i' usage if the `nounset` option is set
while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' file; do
patharray[i++]="$(dirname "$file")" # or however you want to process each file
done < <(locate -b0 '\.git')
use the lastpipe option (new in Bash 4.2) - doesn't run the last command of a pipeline in a subprocess (mediocre: has global effect)
I have the following find command with the following output:
$ find -name '*.jpg'
./public_html/github/screencasts-gh-pages/reactiveDataVis/presentation/images/telescope.jpg
./public_html/github/screencasts-gh-pages/introToBackbone/presentation/images/telescope.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(6)Thin Ice.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Snapshot.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Map_Grass.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(8)TheHunters.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(2)Volcanis.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(3)Trench wars.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(8)BigGameHunters.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(8)Turbo.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(4)Blood Bath.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(2)Switchback.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(6)Thin Ice.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/Map_Grass.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(8)TheHunters.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(2)Volcanis.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(3)Trench wars.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(8)BigGameHunters.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(8)Turbo.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(4)Blood Bath.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(2)Switchback.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/Original/(4)Orbital Relay.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Maps/(4)Orbital Relay.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Bg/GameLose.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Bg/GameWin.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Bg/GameStart.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Bg/GamePlay.jpg
./public_html/github/StarCraft-master/img/Demo/Demo.jpg
./public_html/github/flot/examples/image/hs-2004-27-a-large-web.jpg
./public_html/github/minicourse-ajax-project/other/GameLose.jpg
How do I store this output in an array? I want it to handle filenames with spaces
I have tried this arrayname=($(find -name '*.jpg')) but this just stores the first element. # I am doing the following which seems to be just the first element?
$ arrayname=($(find -name '*.jpg'))
$ echo "$arrayname"
./public_html/github/screencasts-gh-pages/reactiveDataVis/presentation/images/telescope.jpg
$
I have tried here but again this just stores the 1st element
Other similar Qs
How do I capture the output from the ls or find command to store all file names in an array?
How do i store the output of a bash command in a variable?
If you know with certainty that your filenames will not contain newlines, then
mapfile -t arrayname < <(find ...)
If you want to be able to handle any file
arrayname=()
while IFS= read -d '' -r filename; do
arrayname+=("$filename")
done < <(find ... -print0)
echo "$arrayname" will only show the first element of the array. It is equivalent to echo "${arrayname[0]}". To dump an array:
printf "%s\n" "${arrayname[#]}"
# ............^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ must use exactly this form, with the quotes.
arrayname=($(find ...)) is still wrong. It will store the file ./file with spaces.txt as 3 separate elements in the array.
If you have a sufficiently recent version of bash, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just using a ** glob.
shopt -s globstar
files=(**/*.jpg)
The first line enables the feature. Once enabled, ** in a glob pattern will match any number (including 0) of directories in the path.
Using the glob in the array definition makes sure that whitespace is handled correctly.
To view an array in a form which could be used to define the array, use the -p (print) option to the declare builtin:
declare -p files
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