Array of string expanded to path?

Question

Suppose I have the following initialization of bash array:

my_array=(
    "/usr/bin"
    "/usr/lib/*.so"
)

If I do iteration using:

for array_item in ${my_array[@]} 
do 
    ... 
done

Then the content of the my_array is expanded containing path to any files with .so extension in /usr/lib/ directories. but I just wanted the array contain two string which is "/usr/bin" and "/usr/lib/*.so".

How should I do that?

Maciej Piechotka · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-18 22:20:06Z

up vote 4 down vote accepted

for array_item in "${my_array[@]}"
do 
    ...
done

or

for idx in $(seq ${#my_array})
do
    array_item="${my_array[$idx]}"
done

edited Sep 18 '10 at 22:20

answered Sep 18 '10 at 22:09

Maciej Piechotka
6,34711238

no, its not working, the file list still expanded. – uray Sep 18 '10 at 22:48

The first one works for me in bash 3.2.48 and both in zsh 4.3.9. – Maciej Piechotka Sep 18 '10 at 22:59

oh ok, my fault I should echo using quotes for array_item (I use bash 4.1.7 btw) – uray Sep 18 '10 at 23:22

Good to hear it. I'm on "wrong" system so I needed to test it on shell server - hence not brand new shell ;) – Maciej Piechotka Sep 18 '10 at 23:56

2

I think for idx in ${!a[@]} is preferable to using seq since it avoids unnecessarily using an external program and works even if the array is sparse. – Dennis Williamson Sep 19 '10 at 4:04

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Array of string expanded to path?

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