Read file into bash array

Question

How can I make this work?

I have test data: test.dat

red apples
green tomato
yellow lemon

I've tried numerous examples that I could find to no avail.

Obviously there is something about the shell I don't understand...

#!/bin/bash

#lines=$(IFS='\n' cat $1)
#IFS=$'\r\n' GLOBIGNORE='*' command eval  
#lines=($(cat test.dat))
#IFS=$'\n' read -d '' -r -a lines < test.dat
#readarray -t lines < test.dat
#lines=$(cat test.dat)

lines=$(< test.dat)


for line in $lines
do
  echo "${line}"
done

printf "line 1: %s\n" "${lines[1]}"
echo "line 2: ${lines[2]}"

Output:

./test.sh test.dat
red
apples
green
tomato
yellow
lemon
./test.sh line 71: lines[1]: unbound variable

What does it mean for it to work? What do you expect to happen? What is wrong with that `readarray` command you already have the, within the commented part? — ilkkachu, Feb 14 '21 at 17:26
I want to be able to access the data via $line & "${lines[n]} And as you can see it is splitting the lines. — duffy, Feb 14 '21 at 17:29
`lines=$(< test.dat)` isn't creating an array, it's a single string. — Barmar, Feb 14 '21 at 17:32
Thank you Barmar! That worked. I had tried readarray but not with ${lines[@]} in the for loop. — duffy, Feb 14 '21 at 17:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 14 '21 at 20:24

0

Using the readarray command should work, readarray -t a < /path/to/filename

answered Feb 14 '21 at 20:24

Shaqil Ismail

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Read file into bash array

1 Answers1