Bash How to Pass Array to Function

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Bash How to Pass Array to Function

To pass all array items as arguments to the function using the following syntax:

my_function "${array[@]}"

To get values from the array in function use:

array_in_function=("$@")

If you would use “$1” instead of (“$@”) you get the first item from the array, “$2”-second item and etc.

Here is an example of the function “array_echo” which writes all items of the array.

function array_echo() {
arr=("$@")
for i in "${arr[@]}"; do
echo -n "$i "
done
}

array=(1 2 3 4 5 )
array_echo "${array[@]}"

Note: The “n” option in the echo command doesn’t output the trailing newline.

Actually, it is not passing an array as a variable, but as a list of its elements. In our example, you can not change values of array items from function array_echo().

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