grep output into array

Question

Guys How can I make this work

`find /xyz/abc/music/ |grep def`

I don\'t want to store the array in any temporary variable. How can w

Answer 1

Even though a bit late, the best solution should be the answer from Ray, but you'd have to overwrite the default field separator environment variable IFS to newline for taking complete lines as an array field. After filling your array, you should switch IFS back to the original value. I'll expand Rays solution:

    # keep original IFS Setting
    IFS_BAK=${IFS}
    # note the line break between the two quotes, do not add any whitespace, 
    # just press enter and close the quotes (escape sequence "\n" for newline won't do)
    IFS="
    "
    X=( $(find /xyz/abc/music/ | grep def) )
    echo ${X[1]}
    echo ${X[2]}
    echo ${X[3]}
    echo ${X[4]}
    # set IFS back to normal..
    IFS=${IFS_BAK}

Hope this helps

Answer 2

this will work

array_name=(`find directorypath | grep "string" | awk -F "\n" '{print $1}'`)
echo $array_name

Answer 3

Do you mean to get the first line of the output?

find /xyz/abc/music/ |grep def|head 1

Answer 4

Put the call to find in array brackets

X=( $(find /xyz/abc/music/ | grep def) )
echo ${X[1]}
echo ${X[2]}
echo ${X[3]}
echo ${X[4]}

Answer 5

If you just need the first element (or rather line), you can use head:

`find /xyz/abc/music/ |grep def | head -n 1`

If you need access to arbitrary elements, you can store the array first, and then retrieve the element:

arr=(`find /xyz/abc/music/ |grep def`)
echo ${arr[n]}

but this will not put each line of grep output into a separate element of an array.

If you care for whole lines instead of words, you can use head and tail for this task, like so:

`find /xyz/abc/music/ |grep def | head -n line_number | tail -n 1`