String elements in array with whitespaces in them being splitted?

Question

I'm trying to use the next array's elements to replace some strings in a file:

declare -a replacements=($name, $description, $date, $keywords)

By using the search terms in this array:

declare -a searchs=("a.name", "a.description", "a.date", "a.keywords")

The problem is that some variables (description, for example) have whitespaces in them:

declare description = "My name is Jonah"

Which casuses a weird behaviour on the next piece of code:

for ((i = 0; i < ${#searchs[@]}; i++))
do
    sed -i -e "s/${searchs[$i]}/${replacements[$i]}/g" "./${directory}/data.txt"
done

The for loops uses every word in the string as a replacement instead of the whole string.

Is there a way to fix this error? Thanks in advance!

vdavid · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-12 17:16:01Z

1

You simply need to quote elements before inserting them in the array.

I suppose that also you may NOT separate your elements with a comma.

declare -a replacements=("$name" "$description" "$date" "$keywords")

answered Mar 12, 2020 at 17:16

vdavid

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1 Comment

enbermudas Over a year ago

Commas where an error of mine while writing the code in here. I didn't want to use the actual code. Either way, the quoting is indeed the solution. Thanks a lot!

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-12 17:14:47Z

1

You should quotes in your declaration of array with shell variables:

declare -a replacements=("$name" "$description" "$date" "$keywords")

Also note that there must not be commas in shell array initialization.

You can check array content using:

declare -p replacements

answered Mar 12, 2020 at 17:14

anubhava

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