How to slice an array in Bash
See the Parameter Expansion section in the Bash man
page. A[@]
returns the contents of the array, :1:2
takes a slice of length 2, starting at index 1.
A=( foo bar "a b c" 42 )
B=("${A[@]:1:2}")
C=("${A[@]:1}") # slice to the end of the array
echo "${B[@]}" # bar a b c
echo "${B[1]}" # a b c
echo "${C[@]}" # bar a b c 42
echo "${C[@]: -2:2}" # a b c 42 # The space before the - is necesssary
Note that the fact that a b c
is one array element (and that it contains an extra space) is preserved.
There is also a convenient shortcut to get all elements of the array starting with specified index. For example "${A[@]:1}" would be the "tail" of the array, that is the array without its first element.
version=4.7.1
A=( ${version//\./ } )
echo "${A[@]}" # 4 7 1
B=( "${A[@]:1}" )
echo "${B[@]}" # 7 1