New Features In Bash Version 4.x – Part 4

“In this final installment of our series, we will look at
perhaps the most significant area of change in bash version 4.x:
arrays.

“Arrays In bash

“Arrays were introduced in version 2 of bash about fifteen years
ago. Since then, they have been on the fringes of shell
programming. I, in fact, have never seen a shell script “in the
wild” that used them. None of the scripts on LinuxCommand.org, for
example, use arrays.

“Why is this? Arrays are widely used in other programming
languages. I see two reasons for this lack of popularity. First,
arrays are not a traditional shell feature. The Bourne shell, which
bash was designed to emulate and replace, offers no array support
at all. Second, arrays in bash are limited to a single dimension,
an unusual limitation given that virtually every other programming
language supports multi-dimensional arrays.”

Complete Story