Use an array as argv?

SpaghettiMan

8/31/24, 1:15 PM

In a bash script, I'm calling a function with a large number of arguments, say for example /bin/meaningoflife takes 42 arguments. Is there a way I can pass an array to a command instead of manually entering in all of the 42 arguments? For example:

arr = ("arg1", "arg2", "arg3")
/bin/meaningoflife {argv=arr}

is the same as

/bin/meaningoflife "arg1" "arg2" "arg3"

Thanks!

449

1 + 0

bash

scripts

Score:10

Ubuntu

steeldriver

8/31/24, 1:19 PM

The bash syntax would be

arr=("arg1" "arg2" "arg3")          # no commas, no whitespace around the assignment
/bin/meaningoflife "${arr[@]}"      # double quotes prevent word splitting of elements

More formally, rather than "no commas" in the assignment, you want array elements to be separated by whitespace. It would be equally valid to write

arr=(
  "arg1"
  "arg2"
  "arg3"
)

for example - which is often easier to read for long lists.

See Arrays (Bash Reference Manual)

+ 2

Barmar

9/1/24, 2:36 PM

Even if IFS is set to comma, that only affects word splitting after variable expansion, not when parsing the script source itself.

steeldriver

9/1/24, 5:02 PM

@Barmar thanks - for some reason, I was thinking IFS affected the parsing of the compound assignment

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