Timeline for What is the most correct way to pass an array to a function?

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Apr 13, 2017 at 12:36	history	edited	CommunityBot		replaced http://unix.stackexchange.com/ with https://unix.stackexchange.com/
Jun 26, 2012 at 15:11	vote	accept	rahmu
Jun 23, 2012 at 22:56	comment	added	Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'		@rahmu There are two parameters: fear and surprise… and ruthless efficiency. (In other words, you're right, there's a typo: `hello`, `world` and `wibble` make 3 parameters.)
Jun 23, 2012 at 22:40	comment	added	rahmu		Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there's a typo in what you wrote: the unquoted expansion passes 3 params, not 2.
Jun 23, 2012 at 21:47	comment	added	Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'		@rahmu The quotes are needed to avoid splitting and globbing on individual elements. Consider `myarray=("hello world" wibble)` (2 elements, the first of which contains a space): `work_on_array "${myarray[@]}"` passes 2 parameters `hello world` and `wibble`; `work_on_array ${myarray[@]}` passes 2 parameters `hello`, `world` and `wibble`. And with `myarray=(*)`, `work_on_array ${myarray[@]}` passes the list of files in the current directory. (Hence this is one of the many cases where my advice makes a practical difference.)
Jun 23, 2012 at 10:16	comment	added	rahmu		Thanks. Question: if the result of the expansion is not one word, why are the quotes needed? Can they be omitted? Are you just applying your advice of "always quote unless you have a good reason not to"? :p
Jun 23, 2012 at 0:57	history	answered	Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'	CC BY-SA 3.0