Creating an array from a text file in Bash

A script takes a URL, parses it for the required fields, and redirects its output to be saved in a file, file.txt. The output is saved on a new line each time a field has been found.

file.txt

A Cat
A Dog
A Mouse 
etc... 

I want to take file.txt and create an array from it in a new script, where every line gets to be its own string variable in the array. So far I have tried:

#!/bin/bash

filename=file.txt
declare -a myArray
myArray=(`cat "$filename"`)

for (( i = 0 ; i < 9 ; i++))
do
  echo "Element [$i]: ${myArray[$i]}"
done

When I run this script, whitespace results in words getting split and instead of getting

Desired output

Element [0]: A Cat 
Element [1]: A Dog 
etc... 

I end up getting this:

Actual output

Element [0]: A 
Element [1]: Cat 
Element [2]: A
Element [3]: Dog 
etc... 

How can I adjust the loop below such that the entire string on each line will correspond one-to-one with each variable in the array?


Use the mapfile command:

mapfile -t myArray < file.txt

The error is using for -- the idiomatic way to loop over lines of a file is:

while IFS= read -r line; do echo ">>$line<<"; done < file.txt

See BashFAQ/005 for more details.


You can do this too:

oldIFS="$IFS"
IFS=$'n' arr=($(<file))
IFS="$oldIFS"
echo "${arr[1]}" # It will print `A Dog`.

Note:

Filename expansion still occurs. For example, if there's a line with a literal * it will expand to all the files in current folder. So use it only if your file is free of this kind of scenario.


mapfile and readarray (which are synonymous) are available in Bash version 4 and above. If you have an older version of Bash, you can use a loop to read the file into an array:

arr=()
while IFS= read -r line; do
  arr+=("$line")
done < file

In case the file has an incomplete (missing newline) last line, you could use this alternative:

arr=()
while IFS= read -r line || [[ "$line" ]]  do
  arr+=("$line")
done < file

Related:

  • Need alternative to readarray/mapfile for script on older system
  • 链接地址: http://www.djcxy.com/p/25574.html

    上一篇: 从POST Curl插入数据到JAVA Spring

    下一篇: 在Bash中的文本文件中创建一个数组