[SOLVED] Iterating array in declared function of bash shell script

Issue

I've been working through creating a script to move some files from a local machine to a remote server. As part of that process I have a function that can either be called directly or wrapped with 'declare -fp' and sent along to an ssh command. The code I have so far looks like this:

export REMOTE_HOST=myserver
export TMP=eyerep-files

doTest()
{
    echo "Test moving files from $TMP with arg $1"
    declare -A files=(["abc"]="123" ["xyz"]="789")
    echo "Files: ${!files[@]}"
    for key in "${!files[@]}"
    do
        echo "$key => ${files[$key]}"
    done
}

moveTest()
{
    echo "attempting move with wrapped function"    
    ssh -t "$REMOTE_HOST" "$(declare -fp doTest|envsubst); doTest ${1@Q}"
}

moveTest $2

If I run the script with something like

./myscript.sh test dev

I get the output

attempting move with wrapped function
Test moving files from eyerep-files with arg dev
Files: abc xyz
bash: line 7:  => ${files[]}: bad substitution

It seems like the string expansion for the for loop is not working correctly. Is this expected behaviour? If so, is there an alternative way to loop through an array that would avoid this issue?

Solution

If you're confident that your remote account's default shell is bash, this might look like:

moveTest() {
    ssh -t "$REMOTE_HOST" "$(declare -f doTest; declare -p $(compgen -e)); doTest ${1@Q}"
}

If you aren't, it might instead be:

moveTest() {
    ssh -t "$REMOTE_HOST" 'exec bash -s' <<EOF
set -- ${@@Q}
$(declare -f doTest; declare -p $(compgen -e))
doTest \"\$@\"
EOF
}

Answered By - Charles Duffy

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (WPSolving Admin)