CODEWITHSUNDEEP
arraysbash
user1011471
user1011471

Reputation: 1130

using a bash array as arguments to a script?

I'm trying to build up an array and then use it as the arguments to a script. When I echo out the command I think I'm building, it looks fine. But when I try to execute it, nothing happens. Here's a small example. In my actual script, I have to build the array at run time so I can't hard code (/tmp -iname "*.log*") And it has to run in older bash environments too, so I can't use += to append to an array.

#!/bin/bash

args=( /tmp )
args[${#args[@]}]=-iname
args[${#args[@]}]="\"*.log\""

# the following echoes what I expect: find /tmp -iname "*.log"
echo find "${args[@]}"

# this next line does not appear to find any files
find "${args[@]}"

echo the following finds files 
find /tmp -iname "*.log"

What am I doing wrong?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 33

Answers (1)

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 784958

Don't use quotes inside quotes, this should work:

#!/bin/bash

args=( /tmp )
args[${#args[@]}]=-iname
args[${#args[@]}]='*.log'

find "${args[@]}"

Upvotes: 3

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