Arrays and associative arrays

Arrays are a very important component for storing a collection of data as separate entities using indexes. Regular arrays can use only integers as their array index. On the other hand, Bash also supports associative arrays that can take a string as their array index. Associative arrays are very useful in many types of manipulations where having a string index makes more sense. In this recipe, we will see how to use both of these.

Getting ready

To use associate arrays, you must have Bash Version 4 or higher.

How to do it...

1. An array can be defined in many ways. Define an array using a list of values in a line as follows:

   array_var=(1 2 3 4 5 6)
   #Values will be stored in consecutive locations starting from index 0.
   

   Alternately, define an array as a set of index-value pairs as follows:

   array_var[0]="test1"
   array_var[1]="test2"
   array_var[2]="test3"
   array_var[3]="test4"
   array_var[4]="test5"
   array_var[5]="test6"
   

2. Print the contents of an array at a given index using the following commands:

   echo ${array_var[0]}
   test1
   index=5
   echo ${array_var[$index]}
   test6
   

3. Print all of the values in an array as a list using the following commands:

   $ echo ${array_var[*]}
   test1 test2 test3 test4 test5 test6
   

   Alternately, you could use:

   $ echo ${array_var[@]}
   test1 test2 test3 test4 test5 test6
   

4. Print the length of an array (the number of elements in an array) as follows:

   $ echo ${#array_var[*]}
   6
   

There's more...

Associative arrays have been introduced to Bash from Version 4.0 and they are useful entities to solve many problems using the hashing technique. Let us go into more detail.

Defining associative arrays

In an associative array, we can use any text data as an array index. Initially, a declaration statement is required to declare a variable name as an associative array. This can be done as follows:

$ declare -A ass_array

After the declaration, elements can be added to the associative array using two methods as follows:

• By using inline index-value list method, we can provide a list of index-value pairs:

  $ ass_array=([index1]=val1 [index2]=val2)
  

• Alternately, you could use separate index-value assignments:

  $ ass_array[index1]=val1
  $ ass_array'index2]=val2
  

For example, consider the assignment of price for fruits using an associative array:

$ declare -A fruits_value
$ fruits_value=([apple]='100dollars' [orange]='150 dollars')

Display the content of an array as follows:

$ echo "Apple costs ${fruits_value[apple]}"
Apple costs 100 dollars

Listing of array indexes

Arrays have indexes for indexing each of the elements. Ordinary and associative arrays differ in terms of index type. We can obtain the list of indexes in an array as follows:

$ echo ${!array_var[*]}

Or, we can also use:

$ echo ${!array_var[@]

In the previous fruits_value array example, consider the following command:

$ echo ${!fruits_value[*]}
orange apple

This will work for ordinary arrays too.