Storing newline separated strings into array with bash

Question

I have the following code

tasks=$(cut ~/.todo/data -f3)

data consists of

1331956800  29  task 5
1361077200  28  task 3
1363554894  26  task 1
1363555119  30  baller

For some reason, I can extract the first two columns with this method but the third doesn't seem to work properly. I tried setting IFS='\n' before tasks= but it still refuses to work.

There are tabs between columns, only spaces in column 3.

I want

${tasks[0]} = "task 5"
${tasks[1]} = "task 3"
...
${tasks[3]} = "baller"

Here is the output of cut

$ cut ~/.todo/data -f3
task 5
task 3
task 1
baller

Josh Cartwright · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-18 13:55:49Z

1

Simple bash solution.

tasks=()
while IFS=$'\t' read _ _ t; do
        tasks+=("$t")                                                       
done <<-!
        1331956800      29      task 5
        1361077200      28      task 3
        1363554894      26      task 1
        1363555119      30      baller
!

for t in "${tasks[@]}"; do
        echo "$t"
done

answered Mar 18, 2013 at 13:55

Josh Cartwright

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Comments

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-18 00:32:03Z

0

awk splits columns on space or tabs by default (that can be more than just one of these) and it's more suitable for files with mixed columns delimiters.

readarray a < <(awk '{print "\047" $3, $4 "\047"}' file.txt)
for i in ${!a[@]}; do echo "index[$i]=${a[i]}"; done

Edit : your question grown in the thread, so

readarray a < <(
    awk '{$1=$2=""; sub(/^ +/, ""); print "\047" $0 "\047"}' ~/.todo/data
)

\047

is the octal ASCII representation of '

edited Mar 18, 2013 at 0:32

answered Mar 17, 2013 at 22:27

Gilles Quénot

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8 Comments

John Lotacs Over a year ago

I'm having the same problem reading in filenames with spaces using find, how can I fix that?

fedorqui Over a year ago

I guess $3=="task" instead of $4.

Gilles Quénot Over a year ago

@JohnLotacs, "There are tabs between columns, only spaces in column 3." makes no sense at all, spaces are between columns

John Lotacs Over a year ago

This doesn't solve my problem, this is returning just the integer, I need the whole string, "task 3" "task 2" ... "baller"

John Lotacs Over a year ago

the file is TAB separated, cut -f3 ~/.todo/data returns a column of strings "task 3\ntask 2\ntask 1\nballer", I want each line inside the bash array. I edited my question to be more specific.

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