How to split one string into multiple strings separated by at least one space in bash shell?

Question

I have a string containing many words with at least one space between each two. How can I split the string into individual words so I can loop through them?

The stri

Answer 1

For checking spaces just with bash:

[[ "$str" = "${str% *}" ]] && echo "no spaces" || echo "has spaces"

Answer 2

I like the conversion to an array, to be able to access individual elements:

sentence="this is a story"
stringarray=($sentence)

now you can access individual elements directly (it starts with 0):

echo ${stringarray[0]}

or convert back to string in order to loop:

for i in "${stringarray[@]}"
do
  :
  # do whatever on $i
done

Of course looping through the string directly was answered before, but that answer had the the disadvantage to not keep track of the individual elements for later use:

for i in $sentence
do
  :
  # do whatever on $i
done

See also Bash Array Reference.