Bash Quick Start Guide

Glob expansion in arrays

Arrays are especially useful when used to contain expanded globs:

bash$ myhomefiles=("$HOME"/*)
bash$ printf '%s\n' "${myhomefiles[@]}"
/home/bashuser/code/home/bashuser/docs
/home/bashuser/music
/home/bashuser/Important Notes.txt
/home/bashuser/**README**

The myhomefiles array defined here contains a list of all files and directories matched by the * glob in our home directory, and stores them safely, even if they contain special characters, such as spaces, asterisks, or even newlines.

If you wish to store arguments for a command to execute later or for a script to iterate through, you should always use arrays (or positional parameters with set --). Never try to separate the files out from a single variable afterwards, ...