reading in arguments with spaces

Calypso · #1 (**permalink**) 04-22-2009

I want to be able to read in input which contain spaces and put that into an array. Each field should be delimeted by a space and should be a different array element. However I cant get it to work. any tips?

Code:

read input
//type field1 field2 field3
echo "$input"
array="$input"

cfajohnson · #2 (**permalink**) 04-22-2009

Code:

read input
set -f
IFS=' '
array=( $input )

Calypso · #3 (**permalink**) 04-23-2009

Thanks very much for that, the only problem is that if a filed is a metacharacter for example "*" it doesnt seem to work. Ive tried looking on the net but I cant find any similiar examples, any other ideas?

Calypso

lavascript · #4 (**permalink**) 04-23-2009

Try something like this :-

Code:

#!/bin/ksh

input="$@"

set -A array $input

print "Array element 0 = ${array}"
print "Array element 1 = ${array[1]"
print "Array element 4 = ${array[4]"

cfajohnson · #5 (**permalink**) 04-23-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calypso

Thanks very much for that, the only problem is that if a filed is a metacharacter for example "*" it doesnt seem to work. Ive tried looking on the net but I cant find any similiar examples, any other ideas?

You must quote your input if it contains wildcard characters.

(And please post the code you are currently using.)

Calypso · #6 (**permalink**) 04-23-2009

Hi lavascript,

sorry its not script arguments im trying to split up, im reading user input in a while loop e.g

while true
do read input
#split input here into array elements
done

also I am using bash shell and set -A gives me an error

"line 84: set: -A invalid options"

lavascript · #7 (**permalink**) 04-23-2009

ok apologies set -A is for ksh.

Are you doing a while loop for another task or is it purely for this function?

Assuming you want to do other things in your while loop you can try the below code. Otherwise you don't need the while. Saying that you could use while instead of for but below would need changes.

Code:



array=""
array_count=0

for element in $input
do
     ... do some checking....
     array[$array_count]=$element
     ... do other stuff .....
     array_count=$(( $array_count + 1 ))
done

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