I want to accomplish the equivalent of:
list=()
while read i; do
list+=("$i")
done <<<"$input"
with
IFS=$'\n' read -r -a list <<<"$input"
What am I doing wrong?
input=`/bin/ls /`
IFS=$'\n' read -r -a list <<<"$input"
for i in "${list[@]}"; do
echo "$i"
done
This should print a listing of /, but I'm only getting the first item.
You must use mapfile (or its synonym readarray, which was introduced in bash 4.0):
mapfile -t list <<<"$input"
One read invocation only work with one line, not the entire standard input.
read -a list populate the content of first line of standard in to the array list. In your case, you got bin as the only element in array `list.
for bash versions that do not support mapfile
IFS=$'\n' read -ra list -d '' <<< "$input"
should do the trick
I happened to be logged in to a CentOS 5 box running Bash 3 and I had been working on a solution. I’ve already upvoted cuonglm’s answer but I thought I may as well post the solution I came up with that should work with Bash 3 (and 4). I’ve tested it with a file which had a space in its name and another which begins with -.
Instead of
IFS=$'\n' read -r -a list <<<"$input"
simply use command substitution to create and populate the array:
IFS=$'\n' # split on newline only
set -f # disable globbing
list=($(printf "%s" "$input"))
Note: This won’t work with filenames which have newlines in their name.
ls, don't. Uselist=(/*).