In Bash and ksh, expanding an array as if it was a normal string variable, gives the first element of the array. That is, $somearray is the same as ${somearray[0]}.

So,

somearray=(foo bar doo)
echo "$somearray"
echo "$somearray" | wc -w

prints foo and 1, since foo is only one word. If you had somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba") instead, then the wc would show three words.

You'll need to use "${somearray[@]}" to expand all elements of the array as distinct shell words (arguments), or "${somearray[*]}" to expand them as a single shell word, joined with spaces _{(assuming default IFS)}.

In any case, note that the number of elements in an array, and the number of words (in the wc -w or the human language sense) are not the same (see below). Use "${#somearray[@]}" to get the number of elements in the array.

somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba")
echo "${#somearray[@]}"                # 2
echo "${somearray[@]}" | wc -w         # 5

In Bash and ksh, expanding an array as if it was a normal string variable, gives the first element of the array. That is, $somearray is the same as ${somearray[0]}. ^(*)

So,

somearray=(foo bar doo)
echo "$somearray"
echo "$somearray" | wc -w

prints foo and 1, since foo is only one word. If you had somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba") instead, then the wc would show three words.

You'll need to use "${somearray[@]}" to expand all elements of the array as distinct shell words (arguments), or "${somearray[*]}" to expand them as a single shell word, joined with spaces ^(**)

In any case, note that the number of elements in an array, and the number of words (in the wc -w or the human language sense) are not the same, see below. Use "${#somearray[@]}" to get the number of elements in the array.

somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba")
echo "${#somearray[@]}"                # 2 elements, that contain
echo "${somearray[@]}" | wc -w         # 5 whitespace separated words in total

_{(*) ignoring sparse and associative arrays for now.}

_{(**) assuming default IFS}.