I'm pretty new to Linux and I've been trying some learning recently. One thing I'm struggling is Within a log file I would like to grep for all the unique IDs that exist and store them in an array.
The format of the ids are like so id=12345678,
I'm struggling though to get these in to an array. So far I've tried a range of things, the below however
a=($ (grep -HR1 `id=^[0-9]' logfile))
echo ${#a[#]}
but the echo count is always returned as 0. So it is clear the populating of the array is not working. Have explored other pages online, but nothing seems to have a clear explanation of what I am looking for exactly.
a=($(grep -Eow 'id=[0-9]+' logfile))
a=("${a[#]#id=}")
printf '%s\n' "${a[#]}"
It's safe to split an unquoted command substitution here, as we aren't printing pathname expansion characters (*?[]), or whitespace (other than the new lines which delimit the list).
If this were not the case, mapfile -t a <(grep ...) is a good alternative.
-E is extended regex (for +)
-o prints only matching text
-w matches a whole word only
${a[#]#id=} strips the id suffix from each array element
Here is an example
my_array=()
while IFS= read -r line; do
my_array+=( "$line" )
done < <( ls )
echo ${#my_array[#]}
printf '%s\n' "${my_array[#]}"
It prints out 14 and then the names of the 14 files in the same folder. Just substitute your command instead of ls and you started.
Suggesting readarray command to make sure it array reads full lines.
readarray -t my_array < <(grep -HR1 'id=^[0-9]' logfile)
printf "%s\n" "${my_array[#]}"
I am attempting to get a list of running VirtualBox VMs (the UUIDs) and put them into an array. The command below produces the output below:
$ VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F '[{}]' '{print $(NF-1)}'
f93c17ca-ab1b-4ba2-95e5-a1b0c8d70d2a
46b285c3-cabd-4fbb-92fe-c7940e0c6a3f
83f4789a-b55b-4a50-a52f-dbd929bdfe12
4d1589ba-9153-489a-947a-df3cf4f81c69
I would like to take those UUIDs and put them into an array (possibly even an associative array for later use, but a simple array for now is sufficient)
If I do the following:
array1="( $(VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F '[{}]' '{print $(NF-1)}') )"
The commands
array1_len=${#array1[#]}
echo $array1_len
Outputs "1" as in there's only 1 element. If I print out the elements:
echo ${array1[*]}
I get a single line of all the UUIDs
( f93c17ca-ab1b-4ba2-95e5-a1b0c8d70d2a 46b285c3-cabd-4fbb-92fe-c7940e0c6a3f 83f4789a-b55b-4a50-a52f-dbd929bdfe12 4d1589ba-9153-489a-947a-df3cf4f81c69 )
I did some research (Bash Guide/Arrays on how to tackle this and found this with command substitution and redirection, but it produces an empty array
while read -r -d '\0'; do
array2+=("$REPLY")
done < <(VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F '[{}]' '{print $(NF-1)}')
I'm obviously missing something. I've looked at several simiar questions on this site such as:
Reading output of command into array in Bash
AWK output to bash Array
Creating an Array in Bash with Quoted Entries from Command Output
Unfortunately, none have helped. I would apprecaite any assistance in figuring out how to take the output and assign it to an array.
I am running this on macOS 10.11.6 (El Captain) and BASH version 3.2.57
Since you're on a Mac:
brew install bash
Then with this bash as your shell, pipe the output to:
readarray -t array1
Of the -t option, the man page says:
-t Remove a trailing delim (default newline) from each line read.
If the bash4 solution is admissible, then the advice given
e.g. by gniourf_gniourf at reading-output-of-command-into-array-in-bash
is still sound.
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 would like to save egrep output to a bash array:
arr=( $(egrep -Rn 'regex') )
If there so happens to be a '*' in the egrep result, it appears like bash is expanding the '*' to be all files in current directory. And the expansion plus results of egrep are then saved into arr.
How do I fix this? I want the '*' in the grep results to be unaltered.
To use the idiom attempted in the question "correctly" might look something like this:
# DON'T DO THIS.
set -f # turn off globbing
IFS=$'\n' # word-split only on newlines
arr=( $(...) ) # populate array
unset IFS # return IFS to defaults (assuming it was there before)
set +f # turn globbing back on
Obviously, there's a lot of room to get this wrong and leave your shell in a state other than the way it started (What if your script had a different initial IFS value? What if this code is sourced from a script that wants globbing to be disabled to work correctly?). Don't do it.
One approach, compatible with bash 3.x, is to use read -a (reading into an array) with IFS (used to separate fields) containing a newline, and -d (used to separate records) set to a NUL:
IFS=$'\n' read -r -d '' -a arr < <(egrep -Rn 'regex' && printf '\0')
The trailing NUL added to the input is present to ensure that read exits successfully; otherwise, this could trigger an abrupt exit if using set -e.
A longer but more explicit approach is to do the iteration yourself:
arr=( )
while IFS= read -r; do
arr+=( "$REPLY" )
done < <(egrep -Rn 'regex')
Another, using bash 4.x features (readarray, AKA mapfile):
readarray -t arr < <(egrep -Rn 'regex')
I am trying to save the result from find as arrays.
Here is my code:
#!/bin/bash
echo "input : "
read input
echo "searching file with this pattern '${input}' under present directory"
array=`find . -name ${input}`
len=${#array[*]}
echo "found : ${len}"
i=0
while [ $i -lt $len ]
do
echo ${array[$i]}
let i++
done
I get 2 .txt files under current directory.
So I expect '2' as result of ${len}. However, it prints 1.
The reason is that it takes all result of find as one elements.
How can I fix this?
P.S
I found several solutions on StackOverFlow about a similar problem. However, they are a little bit different so I can't apply in my case. I need to store the results in a variable before the loop. Thanks again.
Update 2020 for Linux Users:
If you have an up-to-date version of bash (4.4-alpha or better), as you probably do if you are on Linux, then you should be using Benjamin W.'s answer.
If you are on Mac OS, which —last I checked— still used bash 3.2, or are otherwise using an older bash, then continue on to the next section.
Answer for bash 4.3 or earlier
Here is one solution for getting the output of find into a bash array:
array=()
while IFS= read -r -d $'\0'; do
array+=("$REPLY")
done < <(find . -name "${input}" -print0)
This is tricky because, in general, file names can have spaces, new lines, and other script-hostile characters. The only way to use find and have the file names safely separated from each other is to use -print0 which prints the file names separated with a null character. This would not be much of an inconvenience if bash's readarray/mapfile functions supported null-separated strings but they don't. Bash's read does and that leads us to the loop above.
[This answer was originally written in 2014. If you have a recent version of bash, please see the update below.]
How it works
The first line creates an empty array: array=()
Every time that the read statement is executed, a null-separated file name is read from standard input. The -r option tells read to leave backslash characters alone. The -d $'\0' tells read that the input will be null-separated. Since we omit the name to read, the shell puts the input into the default name: REPLY.
The array+=("$REPLY") statement appends the new file name to the array array.
The final line combines redirection and command substitution to provide the output of find to the standard input of the while loop.
Why use process substitution?
If we didn't use process substitution, the loop could be written as:
array=()
find . -name "${input}" -print0 >tmpfile
while IFS= read -r -d $'\0'; do
array+=("$REPLY")
done <tmpfile
rm -f tmpfile
In the above the output of find is stored in a temporary file and that file is used as standard input to the while loop. The idea of process substitution is to make such temporary files unnecessary. So, instead of having the while loop get its stdin from tmpfile, we can have it get its stdin from <(find . -name ${input} -print0).
Process substitution is widely useful. In many places where a command wants to read from a file, you can specify process substitution, <(...), instead of a file name. There is an analogous form, >(...), that can be used in place of a file name where the command wants to write to the file.
Like arrays, process substitution is a feature of bash and other advanced shells. It is not part of the POSIX standard.
Alternative: lastpipe
If desired, lastpipe can be used instead of process substitution (hat tip: Caesar):
set +m
shopt -s lastpipe
array=()
find . -name "${input}" -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d $'\0'; do array+=("$REPLY"); done; declare -p array
shopt -s lastpipe tells bash to run the last command in the pipeline in the current shell (not the background). This way, the array remains in existence after the pipeline completes. Because lastpipe only takes effect if job control is turned off, we run set +m. (In a script, as opposed to the command line, job control is off by default.)
Additional notes
The following command creates a shell variable, not a shell array:
array=`find . -name "${input}"`
If you wanted to create an array, you would need to put parens around the output of find. So, naively, one could:
array=(`find . -name "${input}"`) # don't do this
The problem is that the shell performs word splitting on the results of find so that the elements of the array are not guaranteed to be what you want.
Update 2019
Starting with version 4.4-alpha, bash now supports a -d option so that the above loop is no longer necessary. Instead, one can use:
mapfile -d $'\0' array < <(find . -name "${input}" -print0)
For more information on this, please see (and upvote) Benjamin W.'s answer.
Bash 4.4 introduced a -d option to readarray/mapfile, so this can now be solved with
readarray -d '' array < <(find . -name "$input" -print0)
for a method that works with arbitrary filenames including blanks, newlines, and globbing characters. This requires that your find supports -print0, as for example GNU find does.
From the manual (omitting other options):
mapfile [-d delim] [array]
-d
The first character of delim is used to terminate each input line, rather than newline. If delim is the empty string, mapfile will terminate a line when it reads a NUL character.
And readarray is just a synonym of mapfile.
The following appears to work for both Bash and Z Shell on macOS.
#! /bin/sh
IFS=$'\n'
paths=($(find . -name "foo"))
unset IFS
printf "%s\n" "${paths[#]}"
If you are using bash 4 or later, you can replace your use of find with
shopt -s globstar nullglob
array=( **/*"$input"* )
The ** pattern enabled by globstar matches 0 or more directories, allowing the pattern to match to an arbitrary depth in the current directory. Without the nullglob option, the pattern (after parameter expansion) is treated literally, so with no matches you would have an array with a single string rather than an empty array.
Add the dotglob option to the first line as well if you want to traverse hidden directories (like .ssh) and match hidden files (like .bashrc) as well.
you can try something like
array=(`find . -type f | sort -r | head -2`) , and in order to print the array values , you can try something like echo "${array[*]}"
None of these solutions suited me because I didn't feel like learning readarray and mapfile. Here is what I came up with.
#!/bin/bash
echo "input : "
read input
echo "searching file with this pattern '${input}' under present directory"
# The only change is here. Append to array for each non-empty line.
array=()
while read line; do
[[ ! -z "$line" ]] && array+=("$line")
done; <<< $(find . -name ${input} -print)
len=${#array[#]}
echo "found : ${len}"
i=0
while [ $i -lt $len ]
do
echo ${array[$i]}
let i++
done
You could do like this:
#!/bin/bash
echo "input : "
read input
echo "searching file with this pattern '${input}' under present directory"
array=(`find . -name '*'${input}'*'`)
for i in "${array[#]}"
do :
echo $i
done
In bash, $(<any_shell_cmd>) helps to run a command and capture the output. Passing this to IFS with \n as delimiter helps to convert that to an array.
IFS='\n' read -r -a txt_files <<< $(find /path/to/dir -name "*.txt")