How to split one string into multiple strings separated by at least one space in bash shell?

bash shell string split
derrdji picture derrdji · Sep 24, 2009 · Viewed 401.3k times · Source

I have a string containing many words with at least one space between each two. How can I split the string into individual words so I can loop through them?

The string is passed as an argument. E.g. ${2} == "cat cat file". How can I loop through it?

Also, how can I check if a string contains spaces?

Answer

Highwind picture Highwind · Nov 15, 2012

I like the conversion to an array, to be able to access individual elements:

sentence="this is a story"
stringarray=($sentence)

now you can access individual elements directly (it starts with 0):

echo ${stringarray[0]}

or convert back to string in order to loop:

for i in "${stringarray[@]}"
do
  :
  # do whatever on $i
done

Of course looping through the string directly was answered before, but that answer had the the disadvantage to not keep track of the individual elements for later use:

for i in $sentence
do
  :
  # do whatever on $i
done

See also Bash Array Reference.

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