The Linux Command Line

Chapter 35. Arrays

In the last chapter, we looked at how the shell can manipulate strings and numbers. The data types we have looked at so far are known in computer science circles as scalar variables, that is, variables that contain a single value.

In this chapter, we will look at another kind of data structure called an array, which holds multiple values. Arrays are a feature of virtually every programming language. The shell supports them, too, though in a rather limited fashion. Even so, they can be very useful for solving programming problems.

What Are Arrays?

Arrays are variables that hold more than one value at a time. Arrays are organized like a table. Let’s consider a spreadsheet as an example. A spreadsheet acts like a two-dimensional array ...