Shell Programming and Scripting

for ((i=0;i<${#VARIABLE};i++)) ; do 
        echo ${VARIABLE:i:1};
done

VARIABLE="slartibartfast"
for ((i=0;i<${#VARIABLE};i++))
do 
        ARR[i]="${VARIABLE:i:1}"
        echo "ARR[i] = ${ARR[i]}"
done

$ ./myscript

ARR[0] = s
ARR[1] = l
ARR[2] = a
ARR[3] = r
ARR[4] = t
ARR[5] = i
ARR[6] = b
ARR[7] = a
ARR[8] = r
ARR[9] = t
ARR[10] = f
ARR[11] = a
ARR[12] = s
ARR[13] = t

$