Re: [Help-bash] use variable as array name

[Eduardo A . Bustamante López]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 08:15:08PM +0100, Phillip Sz wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I want to use a variable as an array name, but I dont see a way to do
> this. For example:
> 
> namelength="$((address@hidden -1))"
> 
> and now I want to replace "array" with for example $1.

That's possible with namerefs:

| address@hidden ~ % bash script
| 2
| address@hidden ~ % cat script
| #!/bin/bash
| 
| thearray=(foo bar baz)
| 
| set -- thearray
| typeset -n key="$1"
| 
| namelength="$((address@hidden -1))"
| echo "$namelength"

Or you could do it with indirection, by creating a copy of the array. Something
like:

key="address@hidden" copy=("${!key}") address@hidden
echo "$length"