Assigning XML Array Elements to Variable

Question

I write bash scripts about once every 5 years, so probably a noob question. This is on OSX.

Paired down script:

#!/bin/bash
array=(
  '<item name="Alice" title="President"/>'
  '<item name="Bob" title="CEO"/>'
)

for k in "${array[@]}"; do
  find=${array[$k]}
done

Here is the error: line 8: <item name="Alice" title="President"/>: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "<item name="Alice" title="President"/>")

Can't figure this one out. Thanks for any help.

Cyrus · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-16 04:48:42Z

1

The variable k in the for loop holds the element (value) of the array, not the index. So you need to say:

for k in "${!array[@]}"; do
    find="${array[$k]}"
done

or

for e in "${array[@]}"; do
    find="$e"
done

edited Oct 16, 2019 at 4:48

Cyrus

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answered Oct 16, 2019 at 4:47

tshiono

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4 Comments

AndroidDev Over a year ago

The first suggestion did not work. Same error. However the second one did. Thanks very much!

tshiono Over a year ago

@Cyrus thank you for the elaboration. As you know it is not necessary to double-quote the right-hand variable when assigning to another variable, I'd admit it is a good practice to quote anyway.

Cyrus Over a year ago

@tshiono: What if array element contains leading or trailing white spaces or consecutive white spaces or a single *?

tshiono Over a year ago

@Cyrus the mentioned whitespaces are preserved. But a single * will make a definitive difference. Understood.

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