On Wed, 6 Sep 2023, 01:46 Kerin Millar, <k...@plushkava.net> wrote: > My pet name for it is arrayshock. > > $ arr=(foo bar baz) > $ export arr > $ env | grep ^BASH_ARRAY_ > BASH_ARRAY_arr%%=([0]="foo" [1]="bar" [2]="baz") > $ ./bash -c 'declare -p arr' > declare -ax arr=([0]="foo" [1]="bar" [2]="baz") >
I've often wondered why it was designed this convoluted way, rather than simply putting separate items into the environment, thus: arr=foo arr[0]=foo # both of these have reasonable justifications and reasonable repudiations; choosing one is a different discussion arr[1]=bar arr[2]=baz arr-=a # maybe, to indicate declare -a. I vaguely recall that there was some notion that POSIX required "only valid C identifiers" (alphanumeric and underscore but without a leading digit) to the left of "=", but in that case the current scheme using "%%" is not compliant either. -Martin >
