How can I join elements of an array in Bash?

Question

If I have an array like this in Bash:

FOO=( a b c )

How do I join the elements with commas? For example, producing a,b,c.

Answer 1

Here's one that most POSIX compatible shells support:

join_by() {
    # Usage:  join_by "||" a b c d
    local arg arr=() sep="$1"
    shift
    for arg in "$@"; do
        if [ 0 -lt "${#arr[@]}" ]; then
            arr+=("${sep}")
        fi
        arr+=("${arg}") || break
    done
    printf "%s" "${arr[@]}"
}