Associative array, brace-free subscripting: key with spaces

Associative array, brace-free subscripting: key with spaces

[Clint Hepner]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 428 bytes --]

Consider the array

    typeset -A b
    b=("a b c" d)

The following correctly expands to "d"

    ${b[a b c]}

but this results in a "bad subscript" error:

    $b[a b c]

I can't seem to find anything in the man page about why this would
be the case. It seems to be a parsing error, since using a separate
parameter to store the key works fine as well:

    z="a b c"
    print $b[$z]

--
Clint Hepner
clint.hepner@gmail.com

Re: Associative array, brace-free subscripting: key with spaces

[Peter Stephenson]

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:17:17 -0400
Clint Hepner <clint.hepner@gmail.com> wrote:
> Consider the array
> 
>     typeset -A b
>     b=("a b c" d)
> 
> The following correctly expands to "d"
> 
>     ${b[a b c]}
> 
> but this results in a "bad subscript" error:
> 
>     $b[a b c]

Without the surrounding brace, the spaces separate words, so it looks at
"$b[a" and doesn't like it.

pws