Bash array with each character of that array element as a character of a string

Question

I am trying to loop though an array in bash. The array is "AARON" currently that array fills index 0 with AARON. I want to be behave as such

ara[0] = A
ara[1] = A
ara[2] = R
ara[3] = O
ara[4] = N

My script currently looks like this.

#!/bin/bash
declare count
declare -a ara=(AARON)

for name in {A..Z}
do
        count=$((count++))
        for char in ${ara[*]}
        do
                if [[ ${ara[char]} -eq $name ]]
                echo ${ara[char]} # for debugging purposes.
                then
                        sum=$((sum + count))
                fi
        done
done

echo $sum #for debugging purposes.

Normally I would achieve this by setting a custom IFS but I don't know how I would do that for each character of string.

Etan Reisner · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-10 03:15:13Z

3

You want = not -eq for string comparison.

Your echo ${ara[char]} line is part of your if test not part of the if body.

Your count=$((count++)) assignment doesn't work correctly (it always sets count to zero) you want ((count++)) or count=$((++count)) instead.

You can use ${strvar:pos:count} to get parts of a string.

So something like this:

#!/bin/bash
declare count
declare -a ara=(AARON)

for name in {A..Z}
do
        ((count++))
        for ((i=0; i<=${#ara[0]}; i++))
        do
                echo ${ara[0]:i:1} # for debugging purposes.
                if [[ ${ara[0]:i:1} = $name ]]
                then
                        sum=$((sum + count))
                fi
        done
done

echo $sum # for debugging purposes.

answered Mar 10, 2015 at 3:15

Etan Reisner

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1 Comment

mklement0 Over a year ago

Nicely done; in the spirit of ((count++)): sum=$((sum + count)) could be simplified to ((sum += count)).

dgsleeps · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-10 03:17:28Z

0

I would do something like this:

declare count
declare -a ara=(A A R O N)

for name in {A..Z}
do  
    for character in ${ara[*]}
    do  
        if [[ ${character} == ${name} ]]
        then
            echo ${character} '='  ${name}  # for debugging purposes.
            let 'sum=sum+1'
        fi  
    done
done

echo $sum #for debugging purposes.

You could add spaces into every letter to convert AARON in a bash array. Moreover, you could use "let" to inrease the counter.

answered Mar 10, 2015 at 3:17

dgsleeps

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