BASH: how to define an array as environment variable before calling a bash script

Question

In bash, you can do

MYVAR="somevalue" ./myscript.sh

and the variable MYVAR will be defined when running myscript.sh.

My questions is: can I do the same for arrays? Unfortunately, neither of the following works.

MYARR=( 1 2 ) ./myscript.sh
MYARR[0]=1 MYARR[1]=2 ./myscript.sh
declare -a MYARR=( 1 2 ) ./myscript.sh

Just note that passing arrays through environment variables won't work because environment variables are always strings. Arrays don't fit there. — Yorik.sar
– Yorik.sar, Commented Aug 8, 2013 at 20:34

dtorgo · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-08 14:33:40Z

7

Incredibility weird.... I have never seen that before.

It looks like the array is not passed to the subshell. One way around this is to source the script instead of executing it:

declare -a MYARR=( 1 2 ); . ./myscript.sh

answered Aug 8, 2013 at 14:33

dtorgo

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3 Comments

Konstantin Over a year ago

Nice, this works! Does sourcing have any drawbacks except for the fact that the shell is closed when myscript.sh calls exit?

Gordon Davisson Over a year ago

Your shell will also retain any variables, functions, and mode settings etc left from the script. For example, if it does a set -f, filename wildcards won't work for you until you turn that option back off. You can avoid this (and the exit problem) by running it in a subshell by putting ( ... ) around the relevant section.

Konstantin Over a year ago

Yes, I am aware of that, thanks. I was using xterm -e "..." so this is not an issue. Unfortunately, however, I cannot do xterm -e "MYARR=( 1 2 ); . ./myscript.sh || read -p \"Error: print [Enter] to continue.\"" anymore. And xterm does not return the exit value of the executed command.

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