Debian output from installed packages in bash array

Question

Sorry for maybe a noob question but I am pretty new to Linux. I am trying to get all output from following command in an array and loop through it (in bash).

packages=$(dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package}' )

for p in "${packages[@]}"; do
        echo "Package: ${p}"
done

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but maybe someone can help me out.

Thanks in advance.

Greetings MC

Thanks for you help. my solution now is this:

while IFS= read  -r line; do
        echo "${line}"
done <<< "$(dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package}\n')"

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9449417/how-do-i-assign-the-output-of-a-command-into-an-array — dekkard, Mar 17 '16 at 22:10
Is that `;` in the format supposed to be doing something useful here? — Etan Reisner, Mar 17 '16 at 22:12
sorry i removed that.. it was my first try when i spliited it by ; — WhoisIt, Mar 18 '16 at 10:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '16 at 22:12

A number of things.

First

packages=$(dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package};'

doesn't create an array.

It creates a string. You need () around the command to split it into an array.

Second:

Even if you were using an array there, you wouldn't want to do this this way.

See Bash FAQ 001 for appropriate ways to read data from a file/command/etc. line-by-line.

Debian output from installed packages in bash array

1 Answers1