Prevent variable iteration in bash script for loop

Question

I have a bash script in which i define a certain path as such:

MY_PATH=/to/my/path

I also have a set of directories within MY_PATH and I store these directories in an array, as such:

DIRECTORIES="/dir1/
/dir2/
/dir3/"

What I want to do is iterate over all the $DIRECTORIES in $MY_PATH, so I tried this:

for dir in $MY_PATH$DIRECTORIES
do
    echo "Processing $dir"
end

However, this gives the following undesired output:

Processing /to/my/path/dir1/           #Correct!
Processing /dir2/                      #What I want: Processing /to/my/path/dir2/
Processing /dir3/                      #What I want: Processing /to/my/path/dir3/

Is there any way to prevent iteration over $MY_PATH while preserving iteration over $DIRECTORIES so that I can achieve the desired output (see above)?

jspcal · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-17 00:28:31Z

3

for dir in $DIRECTORIES; do
  path="$MY_PATH/$dir"
  echo "Processing $path"
done

answered Oct 17, 2012 at 0:28

jspcal

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Comments

Mark Reed · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-17 01:19:32Z

2

That's not an array, btw. Using an array would look like this:

MY_PATH=/to/my/path
DIRECTORIES=(dir1 dir2 dir3)
for dir in "${DIRECTORIES[@]}"; do
  path="$MY_PATH/$dir"
  echo "Processing $path"
done

(and this is not an answer, but the above code wouldn't fit in a comment.:))

answered Oct 17, 2012 at 1:19

Mark Reed

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Comments

doubleDown · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-17 04:26:43Z

0

In case there are spaces in folder names

MY_PATH="/to/my/path"

And you are using newlines to separate folders as before

DIRECTORIES="/dir1/
/dir2/
/dir3/"

A slightly safer loop would be

OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
for dir in $DIRECTORIES; do
  path="$MY_PATH/$dir"
  echo "Processing $path"
done
IFS=$OLDIFS

answered Oct 17, 2012 at 4:26

doubleDown

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