Shell Bash - Split Multilne String into Array

Question

I am trying to get an Array that contains each string line as an element...

stringy=$(ls -l | awk '{print$3,$6,$7,$8,$9}'| grep "$USER")

declare -a myarray=()

IFS="\n" read myarray <<< "$stringy"

echo "${myarray[0]}"
echo "${myarray[1]}"
echo "${myarray[2]}"

for line in "${myarray[@]}"; do
    echo "$line"
done

The String looks something like this:

brunor Nov 17 17:38 22735
brunor Nov 17 15:38 5391
brunor Nov 17 15:38 5405
brunor Nov 17 15:38 5444

(...)

the code outputs just the first element (0) even for the loop:

>brunor Nov 17 17:38 22735
>
>
>brunor Nov 17 17:38 22735

are you sure this ";" before "do" should be there? Looks like the ; is making sure the loop only runs once. — DevB2F
– DevB2F, Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 18:55

that other guy · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-17 19:07:18Z

1

The primary issue is that you're reading myarray as a regular variable, not as an array. Use readarray instead:

readarray -t myarray <<< "$stringy"

Other issues include:

IFS is being set to the letter "n" and a backslash, not a linefeed
read defaults to reading a single line regardless of IFS
echo is a bad way to check the contents of variables because it's ambiguous (declare -p myarray would have immediately shown the problem)

edited Nov 17, 2017 at 19:07

answered Nov 17, 2017 at 19:01

that other guy

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