Hi,

I've got a situation. I'm having GNU bash version 3.00.16(1) on Solaris 10. I need to declare an array say arr1 which will be populated by an output of a command.

declare -a arr1
arr1=( $(/some/command) )

Supposing it will eventually (after executing the command) have element values as -

arr1[0]=1234
arr1[1]=5678
arr1[2]=7890

Now, I need to declare another set of arrays, one for each of the element values above - e.g.

declare -a arr1_1234
declare -a arr1_5678
declare -a arr1_7890

And I also need to populate elements of each of above 3 arrays with output of another command in a loop. So, these arrays will hold values something like -

arr1_1234[0]="abc"
arr1_1234[1]="def"
arr1_1234[2]="ghi"

arr1_5678[0]="jkl"
arr1_5678[1]="mno"
arr1_5678[2]="pqr"

arr1_7890[0]="tuv"
arr1_7890[1]="xyz"
arr1_7890[2]="aab"


I'm able to declare and populate arr1[*]. My question is how do I declare, populate and print the subsequent arrays and their elements?
I am feeling rather thick to get this working. Any help appreciated.

You may want to have a look at: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ivr.html

The best answer is "Use a different language". Doing something that needs data structures that complicated is generally a Bad Idea in bash. I recommend Python, Ruby, or Perl.

Solaris 10 has nawk (and Perl) by default, try to use their associative arrays. I suspect what you are doing could be simpler. describe, if possible, what you are trying to do actually. ( ie moving/copying files? manipulating files ?? )

Concur with tuxdev & ghostdog74; use Perl (or some other lang more powerful than bash).
Tell us what you want to achieve.

I have pondering with the same problem on Solaris 10. If I run declare (on bash) via ssh shell, it works fine. But running it trough script doesn't find the "declare" command. Even though the shell is also bash.

-bash-3.00$ /bin/bash -version
GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release (sparc-sun-solaris2.10)

declare -a JJ; JJ[0]="Testing"; echo "res -> ${JJ[0]}"
res -> Testing


But then running script remotely via ssh, the env or shell is somehow wrong:

on the script:

declare -a JAVATTI || echo "Debug: SHELL -> `echo $SHELL` "
CCC="0"
echo "Debug: ccc -> ${CCC}, JAVATTI -> ${JAVATTI}"

As a result I get:

Debug: vars: JLK -> /usr/java/bin/java ja LL -> 1
sh: declare: not found
Debug: SHELL -> /bin/bash
Debug: ccc -> 0, JAVATTI ->

I just dont get it. The env should be similar, shell is bash. Why it just doesnt find the builtin functions of bash?

sh is NOT bash! "declare" is a bash feature that is not in the POSIX sh standard, and when bash is run using the name "sh", some of these features are turned off. I believe the actual problem is that you do not have a proper shebang line, that is, the first line of your script should be
(env does a PATH lookup on bash because the exact location of the bash binary can be different depending on the system)

The use of backticks here is completely pointless. Just do
It's unrelated, but do not use backticks. Instead, use $(). Backticks are extremely difficult to nest.

@soulcurry: looks like you're talking about two-dimensional arrays.. if you can upgrade to 4.0+ (I recommend 4.2), you can use associative arrays and run things like: