How to print two arrays side by side with bash script?

Question

I couldn't find a good and simple answer to this question neither on google nor here on stackoverflow.

Basically I have two arrays that I need to print into the terminal side by side since one array is a list of terms and the other the terms's definitions. Does anyone know a good way of doing this?

Thanks in advance.

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered May 13 '13 at 01:28

12

Here's a "one-liner":

paste <(printf "%s\n" "${terms[@]}") <(printf "%s\n" "${defs[@]}")

This will create lines consisting of a term and a def separated by a tab, which might not, strictly speaking, be "side by side" (since they're not really in columns). If you knew how wide the first column should be, you could use something like:

paste -d' ' <(printf "%-12.12s\n" "${terms[@]}") <(printf "%s\n" "${defs[@]}")

which will pad or truncate the terms to 12 characters exactly, and then put a space between the two columns instead of a tab (-d' ').

answered May 13 '13 at 01:28

rici

234,347
28
237
341

For those who use shell in POSIX mode: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/151911/syntax-error-near-unexpected-token – Herpes Free Engineer Nov 05 '19 at 10:49
And pure Bash way: https://stackoverflow.com/a/32998279/3393574 – Herpes Free Engineer Nov 05 '19 at 10:51

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered May 12 '13 at 18:32

9

You can use a C-style for loop to accomplish this, assuming both arrays are the same length:

for ((i=0; i<=${#arr1[@]}; i++)); do
    printf '%s %s\n' "${arr1[i]}" "${arr2[i]}"
done

answered May 12 '13 at 18:32

jordanm

33,009
7
61
76

Wouldn't it be easier to loop through array indices? Like `i in "${!arr1[@]}"`? – oguz ismail Feb 11 '21 at 18:27
@oguzismail yes, and it would better handle sparse arrays – jordanm Feb 11 '21 at 18:38

How to print two arrays side by side with bash script?

2 Answers2

Linked

Related