shell script syntax: variable name to reference array

Question

This is close, but I'm having trouble referencing the second array in my loop. What should the syntax look like? $item is returning "1" instead of "a,b,c or d"

colors=( teal purple pink red green darkblue skyblue )
teal=( a b c d )


for color in ${colors[@]}
do
    echo $color

    for item in ${#{$color}[@]}
    do
        echo $item
    done

done

icyrock.com · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-03 23:30:38Z

5

You can do something like this:

mkt.sh

colors=( teal purple pink red green darkblue skyblue )
teal=( a b c d )
purple=( x y z )

for color in ${colors[@]}
do
    echo color: $color

    declare -a 'vals=("${'"$color"'[@]}")'
    for item in ${vals[@]}
    do
        echo "-- $item"
    done
done

Running:

$ ./mkt.sh 
color: teal
-- a
-- b
-- c
-- d
color: purple
-- x
-- y
-- z
color: pink
color: red
color: green
color: darkblue
color: skyblue
$

Credits:

http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/arrays, section Indirection

answered Apr 3, 2012 at 23:30

icyrock.com

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