Bash quoted array expansion

Question

WHen I write a bash program I typically construct calls like follows:

declare -a mycmd=( command.ext \"arg1 with space\" arg2 thing etc )

\"${mycmd[@]}\" || ech         


        

Answer 1

Another approach

# echo_array.sh

contains_space(){ [[ "$1" =~ " " ]]; return $?; }
maybe_quote_one(){ contains_space "$1"  &&  echo \'"$1"\'  ||  echo "$1"; }
maybe_quote(){ while test "$1"; do maybe_quote_one "$1"; shift; done; }

arridx(){ echo '${'$1'['$2']}'; }
arrindir(){ echo $(eval echo `arridx $1 $2`); }
arrsize(){ echo `eval echo '${'#$1'[@]}'`; }

echo_array()
{ 
    echo -n "$1=( "
    local i=0
    for (( i=0; i < `arrsize a`; i++ )); do
        echo -n $(maybe_quote "$(arrindir $1 $i)") ''
    done
    echo ")"
}

Usage:

source echo_array.sh
a=( foo bar baz "It was hard" curious '67 - 00' 44 'my index is 7th' )
echo_array a
# a=( foo bar baz 'It was hard' curious '67 - 00' 44 'my index is 7th'  )
arrindir a 7
# my index is 7th
arrindir a 0
# foo
arrsize a
# 8

$ bash --version

GNU bash, version 4.3.48(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.