Compare/Difference of two arrays in Bash

If you strictly want Array1 - Array2, then

Array1=( "key1" "key2" "key3" "key4" "key5" "key6" "key7" "key8" "key9" "key10" )
Array2=( "key1" "key2" "key3" "key4" "key5" "key6" )

Array3=()
for i in "${Array1[@]}"; do
    skip=
    for j in "${Array2[@]}"; do
        [[ $i == $j ]] && { skip=1; break; }
    done
    [[ -n $skip ]] || Array3+=("$i")
done
declare -p Array3

Runtime might be improved with associative arrays, but I personally wouldn't bother. If you're manipulating enough data for that to matter, shell is the wrong tool.

---

For a symmetric difference like Dennis's answer, existing tools like comm work, as long as we massage the input and output a bit (since they work on line-based files, not shell variables).

Here, we tell the shell to use newlines to join the array into a single string, and discard tabs when reading lines from comm back into an array.

$ oldIFS=$IFS IFS=$'\n\t'
$ Array3=($(comm -3 <(echo "${Array1[*]}") <(echo "${Array2[*]}")))
comm: file 1 is not in sorted order
$ IFS=$oldIFS
$ declare -p Array3
declare -a Array3='([0]="key7" [1]="key8" [2]="key9" [3]="key10")'

It complains because, by lexographical sorting, key1 < … < key9 > key10. But since both input arrays are sorted similarly, it's fine to ignore that warning. You can use --nocheck-order to get rid of the warning, or add a | sort -u inside the <(…) process substitution if you can't guarantee order&uniqueness of the input arrays.

Anytime a question pops up dealing with unique values that may not be sorted, my mind immediately goes to awk. Here is my take on it.

Code

#!/bin/bash

diff(){
  awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS=" "}
       {NR==FNR?a[$0]++:a[$0]--}
       END{for(k in a)if(a[k])print k}' <(echo -n "${!1}") <(echo -n "${!2}")
}

Array1=( "key1" "key2" "key3" "key4" "key5" "key6" "key7" "key8" "key9" "key10" )
Array2=( "key1" "key2" "key3" "key4" "key5" "key6" )
Array3=($(diff Array1[@] Array2[@]))
echo ${Array3[@]}

Output

$ ./diffArray.sh
key10 key7 key8 key9

*Note**: Like other answers given, if there are duplicate keys in an array they will only be reported once; this may or may not be the behavior you are looking for. The awk code to handle that is messier and not as clean.

echo ${Array1[@]} ${Array2[@]} | tr ' ' '\n' | sort | uniq -u

Output

key10
key7
key8
key9

You can add sorting if you need