Loop through an array of strings in Bash?

Question

I want to write a script that loops through 15 strings (array possibly?) Is that possible? Something like: for databaseName in listOfNames then # Do something end

Answer 1

Absolutely, although in bash, you can do this with or without arrays ...

Let's use the command substitution output for all visible files in the current directory - "ls"

See below - without using arrays.

$ for file in $(ls)

> do

> echo $file

> ls -l $file

> done

1

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 1

2

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 2

3

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 3

collections.py

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 1210 May 25 11:26 collections.py

dict.py

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 625 May 25 11:34 dict.py

tester

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 66 May 27 12:12 tester

See below using array:

$ for file in ${fileList[@]}

do

echo $file

ls -l $file

done

1

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 1

2

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 2

3

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 0 May 25 09:10 3

collections.py

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 1210 May 25 11:26 collections.py

dict.py

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 625 May 25 11:34 dict.py

tester

-rw-rw-r--+ 1 lji None 66 May 27 12:12 tester

Of course, we can use the fileList array as a typical indexed array ... so if we wanted to display the 4th item in the array, could invoke the following:

$ echo ${fileList[3]} ## sub-3 references the 4th array element

collections.py