Create Directories from an array in a for loop

Question

I have an array of customer names that I want to use to make a directory. Below is the code I'm running:

$ echo "$customerArray=( customer1 customer2 customer3 customer4 customer5 )"

for customerName in $( customerArray ); 
do
    mkdir -p /home/$customerName
    mkdir -p /home/$customerName/outbound
    mkdir -p /home/$customerName/outbound_backup
    mkdir -p /home/$customerName/dropoff
done

Can anyone explain to me what I'm doing wrong?

D.Shawley · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-17 20:36:34Z

3

You cannot set a variable inside of a string literal and I'm pretty sure that $( customerArray ) is invalid as well. Try the following instead:

customerArray=(customer1 customer2 customer3 customer4 customer5)
for customerName in ${customerArray[@]}
do
    ...
done

You need to reference an array variable as either ${customerArray[@]} or ${customerArray[*]}. The bash manual describes this in more depth.

answered Apr 17, 2013 at 20:36

D.Shawley

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Comments

Zombo · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-17 20:37:05Z

3

This would be a working alternative using brace expansion

customerArray=(customer1 customer2 customer3 customer4 customer5)
for customerName in ${customerArray[*]}
do
  mkdir -p /home/$customerName/{outbound,outbound_backup,dropoff}
done

edited Apr 17, 2013 at 20:37

answered Apr 17, 2013 at 20:26

Zombo

1

1 Comment

user2019182 Over a year ago

Hey Steven thanks for the response. I am actually more so trying to test whether or not the for loop I specify above is properly reading in the information from the array.

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