Concat array elements with comma and single quote - Bash

Question

How to convert array elements with single quotes and comma in Bash.

arr=("element1" "element2" "element3")
#element1 element2 element3

Desired result 'element1','element2','element3'

From Martin Clayton answer comma seprated values are achieved using IFS,

SAVE_IFS="$IFS"
IFS=","
ARRJOIN="${arr[*]}"
IFS="$SAVE_IFS"

echo "$ARRJOIN"
#element1,element2,element3

But how to add single quotes to each element.

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '17 at 12:19

12

[akshay@localhost tmp]$ arr=("element1" "element2" "element3")
[akshay@localhost tmp]$ joined=$(printf ",'%s'" "${arr[@]}")
[akshay@localhost tmp]$ echo ${joined:1}
'element1','element2','element3'

answered Aug 21 '17 at 12:19

Akshay Hegde

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Why ${joined:1} and not simply ${joined}? Or: what does the :1 do? – Bart Robeyns Feb 05 '21 at 13:00
3

Ah, it removes the first character. And the join of course produces a extra comma at the end. – Bart Robeyns Feb 05 '21 at 13:05

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 21 '17 at 12:36

1

Just use sed:

sed -E "s/([[:alnum:]]+)/'&'/g;s/ /,/g" <<< ${arr[@]}

One the first sed command, surround all alpha numeric strings with single quotes and on the second command, replace the spaces with commas.

answered Aug 21 '17 at 12:36

Raman Sailopal

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This won't work right if any elements contain non-alphanumeric characters (spaces, punctuation, etc). – Gordon Davisson Aug 21 '17 at 16:28

Concat array elements with comma and single quote - Bash

2 Answers2