Check if a Bash array contains a value

Question

In Bash, what is the simplest way to test if an array contains a certain value?

Answer 1

The answer with most votes is very concise and clean, but it can have false positives when a space is part of one of the array elements. This can be overcome when changing IFS and using "${array[*]}" instead of "${array[@]}". The method is identical, but it looks less clean. By using "${array[*]}", we print all elements of $array, separated by the first character in IFS. So by choosing a correct IFS, you can overcome this particular issue. In this particular case, we decide to set IFS to an uncommon character $'\001' which stands for Start of Heading (SOH)

$ array=("foo bar" "baz" "qux")
$ IFS=$'\001'
$ [[ "$IFS${array[*]}$IFS" =~ "${IFS}foo${IFS}" ]] && echo yes || echo no
no
$ [[ "$IFS${array[*]}$IFS" =~ "${IFS}foo bar${IFS}" ]] && echo yes || echo no
yes
$ unset IFS

This resolves most issues false positives, but requires a good choice of IFS.

note: If IFS was set before, it is best to save it and reset it instead of using unset IFS

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related:

• Accessing bash command line args $@ vs $*