Problem 1:

read is not a standalone command-- it is built into bash (check the man pages for both). As such, the input it receives does not go through the standard string parser. Instead, it is treated as a literal string, delimited by spaces. So with your input, your array values become:

[0]->("apple
[1]->fruit"
[2]->"orange"
[3]->"grapes"

To do what you want, you need to escape any spaces you have, to avoid the delimiter from kicking in. Namely, you must enter the following input after invoking read:

apple\ fruit oranges grapes

Problem 2: In order for read to store the input it receives as an array, you must have an -a switch followed by the array name. So you need:

read -a myarray -p "Enter your items"

Problem 1:

In your example, read does not get its input from a command line argument, but from stdin. As such, the input it receives does not go through bash's string parser. Instead, it is treated as a literal string, delimited by spaces. So with your input, your array values become:

[0]->("apple
[1]->fruit"
[2]->"orange"
[3]->"grapes"

To do what you want, you need to escape any spaces you have, to avoid the delimiter from kicking in. Namely, you must enter the following input after invoking read:

apple\ fruit oranges grapes

Problem 2: In order for read to store the input it receives as an array, you must have an -a switch followed by the array name. So you need:

read -a myarray -p "Enter your items"

Problem 1:

read is not a standalone command-- it is built into bash. As such, the input it receives does not go through the standard string parser. Instead, it is treated as a literal string, delimited by spaces. So with your input, your array values become:

[0]->("apple
[1]->fruit"
[2]->"orange"
[3]->"grapes"

To do what you want, you need to escape any spaces you have, to avoid the delimiter from kicking in. Namely, you must enter the following input after invoking read:

apple\ fruit oranges grapes

Problem 2: -a must be followed by the array name. So you need:

read -a myarray -p "Enter your items"

Problem 1:

read is not a standalone command-- it is built into bash (check the man pages for both). As such, the input it receives does not go through the standard string parser. Instead, it is treated as a literal string, delimited by spaces. So with your input, your array values become:

[0]->("apple
[1]->fruit"
[2]->"orange"
[3]->"grapes"

To do what you want, you need to escape any spaces you have, to avoid the delimiter from kicking in. Namely, you must enter the following input after invoking read:

apple\ fruit oranges grapes

Problem 2: In order for read to store the input it receives as an array, you must have an -a switch followed by the array name. So you need:

read -a myarray -p "Enter your items"