How to create dictionary using shell script

Question

I have a file status.txt which is in the following format:

1|A|B
2|C|D

Now i have to read this file in shell script and create a dictionary like:

dictionary['1'] = ['A', 'B']
dictionary['2'] = ['C', 'D']

I am able read the content of file using this:

while read line
    do
        key=$line | cut --d="|" -f1
        data1=$line | cut --d="|" -f2
        data2=$line | cut --d="|" -f3
    done < "status.txt"

Can anybody help me in creating the dictionary as mentioned above.

I don't understand how your directory structure should look. What is wrong with `mkdir`? — Bernhard, Apr 30 '14 at 08:05
This might get you going in the right direction: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1494178/how-to-define-hash-tables-in-bash — merlin2011, Apr 30 '14 at 08:08
value=\`echo "dictionary\[\'$key\'\]\ \=\ \[\'$data1\',\ \'$data2\'\]"\`, then mkdir $value, i think this will help — Chandru, Apr 30 '14 at 08:10

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '14 at 10:55

2

According your idea with while loop, here is the fix:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

while IFS="|" read -r key data1 data2
do 
  echo "dictionary['${key}'] = ['${data1}', '${data2}']"
done <"status.txt"

answered Apr 30 '14 at 10:55

BMW

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I did that now how to access the dictionary elements? Should I say `echo $dictionary['2']` to access `C` and `D`? – lakhujanivijay Nov 19 '19 at 05:48

rojomoke · Answer 2 · 2014-04-30T09:52:06.453

1

Change your assignment lines to be like this:

key=$(echo $line | cut -d"|" -f1)

And then add the following line

printf "dictionary['%d'] = ['%s', '%s']\n" $key $data1 $data2

edited Apr 30 '14 at 09:52

answered Apr 30 '14 at 08:17

rojomoke

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Zombo · Answer 3 · 2014-11-09T22:32:36.540

1

#!awk -f
BEGIN {
  FS = "|"
}
{
  printf "dictionary['%s'] = ['%s', '%s']\n", $1, $2, $3
}

edited Nov 09 '14 at 22:32

answered Apr 30 '14 at 08:50

Zombo

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ahmed sharief · Answer 4 · 2019-07-19T06:17:55.640

According to the previous answers i could figure out a solution

#!/usr/bin/env bash

while IFS="|" read -r key data1 data2
do 
  echo "{'${key}' : {'${data1}', '${data2}'}},"
done <"status.txt"

So it will give the result something like as follows

{'key1' : {'data1', 'data2'}, 'key2' : {'data1', 'data2'}}

Then you can use this result in any other language. Example: Python - Convert the above dictionary string to json by
1. json.dumps(result) to convert single quotes tto double quotes
2. json.loads(result) to convert string to json

How to create dictionary using shell script

4 Answers4

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