printing bash array elements inside text file

cogiz · 10-19-2018, 05:54 PM

I am using Linux Mint 18.3 Mate 64 bit

I have 4 Bash arrays as follows:

[CODE]name=(Bob Bill Steve Richard Janet)
hair=(brown grey grey brunette blonde)
eyes=(blue brown brown green hazel)
build=(average slim average big average)[CODE]

I need it printed out in the following format (each sentence has its own line but double spaced and only one space between each word):

${name[@]} has ${hair[@]} hair and ${eyes[@]} eyes and ${build[@]} build.

Output example needed:

Bob has brown hair and blue eyes and average build.

Bill has grey hair and brown eyes and slim build.

Steve has grey hair and brown eyes and average build.

Richard has brunette hair and green eyes and big build.

Janet has blonde hair and hazel eyes and average build.

I would like this to be executed in one command in Bash script if possible.

I have tried this :

Code:

paste <(printf "%s\n" "${name[@]} has") <(printf "%s\n" "${hair[@]} hair and" ) <(printf "%s\n" "${eyes[@]} eyes and") <(printf "%s\n" "${build[@]} build.") > profile.txt
awk {$1=$1}, OFS=" "  profile.txt

but can't seem to get it right.
Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thank you
cogiz

BW-userx · 10-19-2018, 06:12 PM

I need it printed out in the following format (each sentence has its own line but double spaced and only one space between each word):

echo, redirection and a loop can get you this,

Code:

$ cat MyFormatedFile
Bob has brown hair and blue eyes and average build.

Bill has grey hair and brown eyes and slim build.

Steve has grey hair and brown eyes and average build.

Richard has brunette hair and green eyes and big build.

Janet has blonde hair and hazel eyes and average build.

that is what you are looking for, yes?
hint: all of your array's are the same length, so use that for your loop count.

astrogeek · 10-19-2018, 06:26 PM

Welcome to LQ!

That is a lot of printf where a simple loop and echo would do what you want!

Wrap this in a while or for loop using array size as the index limit and see how it works:

Code:

echo -e "${name[$indx]} has ${hair[$indx]} hair and ${eyes[$indx]} eyes and ${build[$indx]} build.\n"

A quick implementation produces this...

Code:

Bob has brown hair and blue eyes and average build.

Bill has grey hair and brown eyes and slim build.

Steve has grey hair and brown eyes and average build.

Richard has brunette hair and green eyes and big build.

Janet has blonde hair and hazel eyes and average build.

I'll leave the loop details as an exercise!

syg00 · 10-19-2018, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cogiz

I would like this to be executed in one command in Bash script if possible.

Why ? Rube Golberg advocate ?.
See suggestion above.

cogiz · 10-20-2018, 09:25 AM

the following worked like a charm:

for (( indx=0 ; indx < ${#name[@]} ; indx++ )); do
echo
echo -e " "${name[$indx]}" has "${hair[$indx]}" hair and "${eyes[$indx]}" eyes and ${build[$indx]} build.\n"
done

Thank you very much for all suggestions
cogiz

BW-userx · 10-20-2018, 09:33 AM

this is what I came up with.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

name=(Bob Bill Steve Richard Janet)
hair=(brown grey grey brunette blonde)
eyes=(blue brown brown green hazel)
build=(average slim average big average)
file=MyFormatedFile 

for i in "${!name[@]}"; do

#sending it to a file

#echo "${name[$i]} has ${hair[$i]} hair and ${eyes[$i]} eyes and ${build[$i]} build." >> $file

#adding two spaces between lines.
#echo;echo >> $file

done

astrogeek used one '\n' for new line, whereas I used the echo;echo to get double spaced between each line, adding an extra '\n' with give you another space between the line as well.

so now you've got two ways to set up your for loop.

Q:
if yo can get code blocks for your one liner you tied, why are you having trouble using code blocks for all of your code?

astrogeek · 10-20-2018, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cogiz

the following worked like a charm:

for (( indx=0 ; indx < ${#name[@]} ; indx++ )); do
echo
echo -e " "${name[$indx]}" has "${hair[$indx]}" hair and "${eyes[$indx]}" eyes and ${build[$indx]} build.\n"
done

Thank you very much for all suggestions
cogiz

You are welcome, glad that helped!

Thank you for the follow-through, and again, welcome to LQ!