Suppose I have this code:
for i in $(find * -type f -name "*.txt"); do
# echo [element by it's index]
done
How do I access, if possible, an element by it's index?
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schrodingerscatcuriosity
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1 Answers
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Your command
$(find * -type f -name "*.txt")
will return a (space-separated) bash list, not an array, hence you cannot really access the individual elements in a "targeted" way.
To convert it to a bash array, use
filearray=( $(find * -type f -name "*.txt") )
(note the spaces!)
Then, you can access the individual entries as in
for ((i=0; i<n; i++))
do
file="${filarray[$i]}"
<whatever operation on the file>
done
where the number of entries can be retrieved via
n="${#filearray[@]}"
Note however that this only works if your file-names don't contain special characters (in particular space) and hence, once again, parsing the output of ls or find is not recommended. In your case, I would recommend seeing if the -exec option of find can do what you need to accomplish.
AdminBee
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Thanks for your answer! I know I can create an array, my question is if it can be done without creating an array. But I guess that you answer this with will return a (space-separated) bash list, not an array, . – schrodingerscatcuriosity Mar 09 '20 at 14:34
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${array[0]}as an example on how it's done if you would loop an array. What I'm asking is what would be in place of it in the above code. – schrodingerscatcuriosity Mar 09 '20 at 14:28findfinds) is through lettingfindexecute the loop through-exec, not by looping over the output offind. – Kusalananda Mar 09 '20 at 14:36