UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a master BASH shell script where I define a bunch of variables:

$var1=why
$var2=is
$var3=(this so hard)

I would then like to call another shell script and pass these variables to it:

$script2 $var1 $var2 $var3

This works fine for var1 and var2. However, var3 is an array, and I can't figure out how to pass it to script2.

Is this not possible in bash? I tried exporting it and that didn't work either. How can I pass arrays defined in one script to another script?

Thank you very much for any help.

Mike

Code:

declare -a ary
ary=($3)
echo $1 $2 ${ary[0]} ${ary[1]} ${ary[2]}

Code:

# sh script.sh why is "this so hard"
why is this so hard

Hi Ikon,

First I would just like to say how much I appreciate all your help.

- I do not appear to have "declare". I am using bash on a Macintosh if that helps.

- I am new to Unix and am having trouble deciphering what you wrote. Specifically, which part goes in the "master" script, and which goes in the "called" script. I would like to have something like this if it's possible:

master script code:

#Define array:
array=(1 2 3)

#Run the "called" script using $array as a parameter:
called_script $array

exit 0

An example how to pass an array to another script:

script1:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

$var1=why
$var2=is
$var3=(this so hard)

./script2 $var1 $var2 ${var3[@]}

exit 0

script2:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

echo $1 $2 $3 $4 $5

exit 0

Regards

Hi,

Yes thank you so much that finally worked! A followup question is:

Can you assign the all of the elements of the array to just one parameter? In your example you assigned the array elements 1-3 to $3 $4 $5 respectively. However, the number of elements in this array will change, and so it would nice to just be able to assign them all to one parameter.

Mike

script2

Code:

#!/bin/sh

var1=$1
var2=$2
ar1=($3)


echo "var1: $var1"
echo "var2: $var2"
count=0
for var in ${ar1[@]}
do
echo "array: $var"
done
exit 0

EDIT: not working hold on checking.

You can fill an array like in script1:

script2:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

array=($3 $4 $5)

echo ${array[0]} ${array[1]} ${array[2]}

exit 0