Reading a delimited string into an array in Bash

arrays string bash shell
Nikola Novak picture Nikola Novak · Feb 15, 2012 · Viewed 244.5k times · Source

I have a variable which contains a space-delimited string:

line="1 1.50 string"

I want to split that string with space as a delimiter and store the result in an array, so that the following:

echo ${arr[0]}
echo ${arr[1]}
echo ${arr[2]}

outputs

1
1.50
string

Somewhere I found a solution which doesn't work:

arr=$(echo ${line})

If I run the echo statements above after this, I get:

1 1.50 string
[empty line]
[empty line]

I also tried

IFS=" "
arr=$(echo ${line})

with the same result. Can someone help, please?

Answer

kev picture kev · Feb 15, 2012

In order to convert a string into an array, please use

arr=($line)

or

read -a arr <<< $line

It is crucial not to use quotes since this does the trick.

Related questions

Converting a Bash array into a delimited string

I would like to know the following; Why the given non-working example doesn't work. If there are any other cleaner methods than those given in working example. Non-working example > ids=(1 2 3 4);echo ${ids[*]// /|} 1 2 3 4 > ids=(1 2 3 4);echo ${${ids[*]}// /|} -bash: ${${ids[*]}// /|}: bad …

Read More
How to add new elements to an array?

I have the following code: String[] where; where.append(ContactsContract.Contacts.HAS_PHONE_NUMBER + "=1"); where.append(ContactsContract.Contacts.IN_VISIBLE_GROUP + "=1"); Those two appends are not compiling. How would that work correctly?

Read More
How to convert UTF-8 byte[] to string?

I have a byte[] array that is loaded from a file that I happen to known contains UTF-8. In some debugging code, I need to convert it to a string. Is there a one liner that will do this? Under …

Read More