Issue

If I have an array like this in Bash:

FOO=( a b c )

How do I join the elements with commas? For example, producing a,b,c.

Solution

A 100% pure Bash function that supports multi-character delimiters is:

function join_by {
  local d=${1-} f=${2-}
  if shift 2; then
    printf %s "$f" "${@/#/$d}"
  fi
}

For example,

join_by , a b c #a,b,c
join_by ' , ' a b c #a , b , c
join_by ')|(' a b c #a)|(b)|(c
join_by ' %s ' a b c #a %s b %s c
join_by $'\n' a b c #a<newline>b<newline>c
join_by - a b c #a-b-c
join_by '\' a b c #a\b\c
join_by '-n' '-e' '-E' '-n' #-e-n-E-n-n
join_by , #
join_by , a #a

The code above is based on the ideas by @gniourf_gniourf, @AdamKatz, @MattCowell, and @x-yuri. It works with options errexit (set -e) and nounset (set -u).

Alternatively, a simpler function that supports only a single character delimiter, would be:

function join_by { local IFS="$1"; shift; echo "$*"; }

For example,

join_by , a "b c" d #a,b c,d
join_by / var local tmp #var/local/tmp
join_by , "${FOO[@]}" #a,b,c

This solution is based on Pascal Pilz's original suggestion.

A detailed explanation of the solutions previously proposed here can be found in "How to join() array elements in a bash script", an article by meleu at dev.to.

Answered By - Nicholas Sushkin

Answer Checked By - Clifford M. (WPSolving Volunteer)

Saturday, January 27, 2024

[SOLVED] How can I join elements of a Bash array into a delimited string?

Issue

Solution