Associative arrays (Bash)

• Associative arrays are arrays where you can give elements their own name. You can also use them for multi-dimensional arrays
• Associative arrays are new in Bash 4. To verify which version of Bash you have: bash --version

Numerical index

Example:

declare -A arr
arr[0,0,0]="000"
arr[0,0,1]="001"
arr[0,1,0]="010"
arr[0,1,1]="011"
arr[1,0,0]="100"
arr[1,0,1]="101"
arr[1,1,0]="110"
arr[1,1,1]="111"

echo "${arr[0,0,0]} ${arr[0,0,1]} ${arr[0,1,0]} ${arr[0,1,1]}"
echo "${arr[1,0,0]} ${arr[1,0,1]} ${arr[1,1,0]} ${arr[1,1,1]}"

Associative index

declare -A device
device["Alternator"]="Alternators"
device["Blower"]="Blowers"

Sources

• https://opensource.com/article/18/5/you-dont-know-bash-intro-bash-arrays
• https://linuxhint.com/associative_array_bash/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11233825/multi-dimensional-arrays-in-bash
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3112687/how-to-iterate-over-associative-arrays-in-bash