Splitting a list in bash

Question

I have this script:

#!/bin/bash

list="a b c d"

for item in ${list[@]}; do
  echo "${item}"
done

When I run it this is the output:

a
b
c
d

This is exactly what I want. However, shellcheck hates this and throws an error:

for item in ${list[@]}; do
            ^-- SC2068: Double quote array expansions to avoid re-splitting elements.

But, when I double quote the variable the output of the script changes to this:

a b c d

Which is not what I want.

Is shellcheck right and should I modify the way I try to extract the items from the variable, but how? Or should I just tell shellcheck to ignore this?

@iBug : I've updated the question by removing the term 'array' — Mausy5043, Dec 25 '18 at 11:35

iBug · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-25T11:38:24.003

15

This is not an array:

list="a b c d"

You're just assigning list to a string of length 7.

To make it a real array:

list=(a b c d)

Then with for item in "${list[@]}", you get the correct result.

For your updated question, you should just use $list instead of ${list[@]}, because list isn't an array.

edited Dec 25 '18 at 11:38

answered Dec 25 '18 at 10:56

iBug

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '22 at 20:31

I was getting this error when using code below:

redhatCatalogs=("certified-operators" "redhat-marketplace")

for catalog in ${redhatCatalogs[@]}; do
  ...

Notice I am missing the quotes, after adding the quotes, problem was solved:

redhatCatalogs=("certified-operators" "redhat-marketplace")

for catalog in "${redhatCatalogs[@]}"; do
  ...

So in conclusion, consider the quotes as well!: "${redhatCatalogs[@]}"

Splitting a list in bash

2 Answers2