Bash array with spaces in elements

Question

I'm trying to construct an array in bash of the filenames from my camera:

FILES=(2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg
2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg
2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg
2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg)

As you can see, there is a space in the middle of each filename.

I've tried wrapping each name in quotes, and escaping the space with a backslash, neither of which works.

When I try to access the array elements, it continues to treat the space as the elementdelimiter.

How can I properly capture the filenames with a space inside the name?

Answer 1

I agree with others that it's likely how you're accessing the elements that is the problem. Quoting the file names in the array assignment is correct:

FILES=(
  "2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg"
  "2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg"
  "2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg"
  "2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg"
)

for f in "${FILES[@]}"
do
  echo "$f"
done

Using double quotes around any array of the form "${FILES[@]}" splits the array into one word per array element. It doesn't do any word-splitting beyond that.

Using "${FILES[*]}" also has a special meaning, but it joins the array elements with the first character of $IFS, resulting in one word, which is probably not what you want.

Using a bare ${array[@]} or ${array[*]} subjects the result of that expansion to further word-splitting, so you'll end up with words split on spaces (and anything else in $IFS) instead of one word per array element.

Using a C-style for loop is also fine and avoids worrying about word-splitting if you're not clear on it:

for (( i = 0; i < ${#FILES[@]}; i++ ))
do
  echo "${FILES[$i]}"
done

Answer 2

Another solution is using a "while" loop instead a "for" loop:

index=0
while [ ${index} -lt ${#Array[@]} ]
  do
     echo ${Array[${index}]}
     index=$(( $index + 1 ))
  done

Answer 3

I think the issue might be partly with how you're accessing the elements. If I do a simple for elem in $FILES, I experience the same issue as you. However, if I access the array through its indices, like so, it works if I add the elements either numerically or with escapes:

for ((i = 0; i < ${#FILES[@]}; i++))
do
    echo "${FILES[$i]}"
done

Any of these declarations of $FILES should work:

FILES=(2011-09-04\ 21.43.02.jpg
2011-09-05\ 10.23.14.jpg
2011-09-09\ 12.31.16.jpg
2011-09-11\ 08.43.12.jpg)

or

FILES=("2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg"
"2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg"
"2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg"
"2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg")

or

FILES[0]="2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg"
FILES[1]="2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg"
FILES[2]="2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg"
FILES[3]="2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg"

Answer 4

If you aren't stuck on using bash, different handling of spaces in file names is one of the benefits of the fish shell. Consider a directory which contains two files: "a b.txt" and "b c.txt". Here's a reasonable guess at processing a list of files generated from another command with bash, but it fails due to spaces in file names you experienced:

# bash
$ for f in $(ls *.txt); { echo $f; }
a
b.txt
b
c.txt

With fish, the syntax is nearly identical, but the result is what you'd expect:

# fish
for f in (ls *.txt); echo $f; end
a b.txt
b c.txt

It works differently because fish splits the output of commands on newlines, not spaces.

If you have a case where you do want to split on spaces instead of newlines, fish has a very readable syntax for that:

for f in (ls *.txt | string split " "); echo $f; end

Answer 5

Escaping works.

#!/bin/bash

FILES=(2011-09-04\ 21.43.02.jpg
2011-09-05\ 10.23.14.jpg
2011-09-09\ 12.31.16.jpg
2011-09-11\ 08.43.12.jpg)

echo ${FILES[0]}
echo ${FILES[1]}
echo ${FILES[2]}
echo ${FILES[3]}

Output:

$ ./test.sh
2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg
2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg
2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg
2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg

Quoting the strings also produces the same output.

Answer 6

You need to use IFS to stop space as element delimiter.

FILES=("2011-09-04 21.43.02.jpg"
       "2011-09-05 10.23.14.jpg"
       "2011-09-09 12.31.16.jpg"
       "2011-09-11 08.43.12.jpg")
IFS=""
for jpg in ${FILES[*]}
do
    echo "${jpg}"
done

If you want to separate on basis of . then just do IFS="." Hope it helps you:)