[SOLVED] Howto

the_gripmaster · 02-18-2010, 07:45 AM

I am trying to create an array containing all ASCII characters, how do I create one:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
CHARLIST=( a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z \
           A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \
           0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 \
           ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + ` - = \ 
           { } | [ ] \ : " ; ' < > ? , . / \
         )

for char in ${CHARLIST[@]}
do
  echo ${char}
done
exit 0

I am having problems with the # character and the characters of the last line of the array.

pixellany · 02-18-2010, 08:08 AM

For starters, what problems are you having?

Keep in mind that many of these characters have a special meaning (which in turn depends on context).

I tried putting all the characters in a file ("asc") and then ran:

Code:

while read char; do echo $char;done <asc

It appears the only issue was that "*" was expanded to the contents of the current working directory.

the_gripmaster · 02-18-2010, 08:19 AM

This is the output when I execute the script:

Code:

./test.sh: line 11: syntax error near unexpected token `|'
./test.sh: line 11: `           { } | [ ] \ : " ; ' < > ? , . / '
./test.sh: line 12: syntax error near unexpected token `)'
./test.sh: line 12: `         )'

Besides, the # character in the array is commenting out the rest of the line.

David the H. · 02-18-2010, 08:34 AM

This appears to work:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

set -f

CHARLIST=( a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 \~ \! \@ \# \$ \% \^ \& \* \( \) \_ \+ \` \- \= \{ \} \| \[ \] \\ \: \" \; \' \< \> \? \, \. \/ )

for char in "${CHARLIST[@]}"
do
  echo "${char}"
done

exit 0

First of all, I got rid of the line-breaks, which made it confusing to work with.
Then "set -f" turns off globbing in bash so * doesn't expand to the directory contents. (Edit: quoting "${CHARLIST[@]}" in the loop means not having to fool with the globbing setting.) Finally backslashing all of the non-alphanumeric characters avoids any shell interpretation (probably not all of them need escaping, but it doesn't hurt).

druuna · 02-18-2010, 08:34 AM

Hi,

@pixellany: If you put $char between double quotes the * is not expanded: while read char; do echo "$char"; done < asc

@the_gripmaster: Did you have a look at pixellany's comment? Your array has all sorts of characters that need to be escaped (the CHARLIST variable won't be filled because of this as stated by the errors shown).

David the H. · 02-18-2010, 08:44 AM

By the way, you can generally shorten up the string some by using brace expansion.

Code:

CHARLIST=( {a..z} {A..Z} {0..9} \~ \! \@ \# \$ \% \^ \& \* \( \) \_ \+ \` \- \= \{ \} \| \[ \] \\ \: \" \; \' \< \> \? \, \. \/ )

I wouldn't trust it to reliably reproduce the entire ascii set though, since the sort order relies on your locale settings.

catkin · 02-19-2010, 01:06 AM

Code:

CHARLIST=( {a..z} {A..Z} {0..9} \
           #  ~  ! @  #  $ % ^  &  *  (   )  _ +  `  - = \
             '~' ! @ '#' $ % ^ '&' . '(' ')' _ + '`' - = \
           # { }  |  [ ]  \  :  "   ;   <   >  ? , . / \
             { } '|' [ ] '\' : '"' ';' '<' '>' ? , . / \
         )
CHARLIST[70]='*'

set -f  # To prevent * being expanded
for char in ${CHARLIST[@]}
do
  echo -n "$char "
done
echo

exit 0

EDIT: CHARLIST[70]='*' is not required. * can be set along with the other characters as '*'.

If you do want the entire ASCII set you could use a loop with CHARLIST[$i]=$'\<$i in octal>'