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shell script: nested arrays?
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kman42
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Mar 11, 2010, 09:10 PM
 
I'm trying to nest some arrays in a shell script, but I can't get it to work. Here's my code:

Code:
#!/bin/sh echo "How many periods? " read j for (( i=1; i <= $j; i++ )); do echo $i$j echo "How many spikes in period ${i}?" read spikes echo "What is the duration of the spikes for period ${i}?" read duration echo "What is the interval between spikes for period ${i}?" read interval echo "What is the lag time before the next period?" read lag period=(${spikes},${duration},${interval},${lag}); echo ${period[@]} periods=(${periods[@]} ${period}); done echo ${periods[@]} for ((p=0; p<=${#periods[@]};p++)); do echo "p= ${p}" thisperiod=${periods[$p]} echo "thisperiod = ${thisperiod}" echo "zero element of thisperiod= ${thisperiod[0]}" for ((s=1; s<=${thisperiod[0]};s++)); do echo "s= ${s}" done done
Basically, the last for loop just goes forever. I can't get '${thisperiod[0]} to resolve to an element. It just keeps returning the whole thisperiod array. I'm very confused.

Thanks!
     
larkost
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Mar 12, 2010, 12:47 AM
 
I believe that this is technically possible... but trying to do things this complex in sh/bash/tcsh/etc is just a headache. When it comes to things like this I switch to a newer language like Perl/Python/Lua/etc. And this is coming from someone who is maintaining a bash script with over 1300 lines (InstaDMG.. I really am trying to switch it over to python... really).
     
Hal Itosis
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Mar 13, 2010, 07:17 PM
 
This will do what you want (more or less). As larkost implies, arrays in Bash are one-dimensional... so a combination of tricks and tradeoffs are needed to pull it off.

A few comments first...
Originally Posted by kman42 View Post
#!/bin/sh
Really should shebang with #!/bin/bash to be true-to-form (sh doesn't do arrays, technically speaking).

Originally Posted by kman42 View Post
period=(${spikes},${duration},${interval},${lag});
Looks nice on paper, and Bash doesn't bark. But -- if/when that gets treated as an array -- it only has one element (e.g., 1,2,3,4). (Else, another choice might be to assign the array elements on the fly, with each of those read operations: read period[0]; read period[1]; read period[2]; read period[3]. But still, putting that array into the periods array would just result in one big array).

Originally Posted by kman42 View Post
thisperiod=${periods[$p]}
:
echo "zero element of thisperiod= ${thisperiod[0]}
As noted above, the items going into periods (e.g., 1,2,3,4) are not arrays themselves (or at best are single-element arrays). So basically $thisperiod is just a string and therefore ${thisperiod[0]} means nothing (nothing expected anyway). See below for how to still make it functional (as long as real indexing doesn't matter).

I had fun brushing up on (and adding to) my knowledge of array syntax while coming up with this... so here it is:
Code:
#!/bin/bash - IFS=$' \t\n' declare -x PATH=/bin:/usr/bin declare -a PERIODS printf "How many periods? " read j for ((i=1; i<=$j; i++)) # Load data... do printf "\n$i/$j:\nHow many spikes in period $i? " read spikes printf "What is the duration of the spikes for period $i? " read duration printf "What is the interval between spikes for period $i? " read interval printf "What is the lag time before the next period? " read lag # Splice the "elements" together, using commas (or some char) as glue: period=$spikes,$duration,$interval,$lag # <--a multi-parameter string. echo "period $i = $period" PERIODS=( "${PERIODS[@]}" "$period" ) # The only real (indexed) array. done echo echo "$j periods: ${PERIODS[@]}" # printf trips up with arrays, must use echo. sleep 1 for ((p=0; p<${#PERIODS[@]}; p++)) # Note that: ${#PERIODS[@]} will likely get the same value as "$j" already is. do printf "\nperiod %d:\n" $(($p+1)) # Unglue the pieces of each period by converting commas into spaces... # and then (instead of using indexes) just iterate over existing data: for s in ${PERIODS[$p]//,/ } # Bash parameter expansion w/substitution do echo "s = $s" done done exit $?
In order for this to work, the items going into each "period" must not contain spaces themselves... else the expansion trick will wind up iterating over more s values than desired. Finally (as also noted by larkost), other languages such as Perl are better built for this sort of thing.

--

EDIT: on further thought, if one absolutely wanted to have array indexes for that final inner do-loop, then the expansion/substitution could be assigned into a new array...
Code:
printf "\nperiod %d:\n" $(($p+1)) # Unglue the pieces of each period (convert the commas into spaces) by # using parameter expansion w/substitution to fabricate a new array... thisPeriod=( ${PERIODS[$p]//,/ } ) for ((s=0; s<${#thisPeriod[@]}; s++)) do echo "data [$p,$s] = ${thisPeriod[$s]}" done
...but the advantage of doing so (if any) is not readily apparent (at least not in terms of that single echo statement given in post #1).
( Last edited by Hal Itosis; Mar 14, 2010 at 02:08 AM. Reason: added 2nd array)
-HI-
     
   
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