[SOLVED] Bash, iterate over the words in a variable with white spaces

Issue

I have the following script:

#!/bin/sh

fruits="apple \"orange juice\" banana"

IFS=" " read -a words <<< "$fruits"
for word in "${words[@]}"
do
    echo "Word: $word"
done

Which produces the following:

Word: apple
Word: "orange
Word: juice"
Word: banana

It splits the sentence "orange juice" into two words. I want to achieve the following output:

Word: apple
Word: orange juice
Word: banana

But I am unable to make it work as I want. What's the problem here?

The following works as expected:

#!/bin/sh

for word in apple "orange juice" banana
do
    echo "Word: $word"
done

So I was expecting that the array expansion with "${words[@]}" did the trick, but it doesn't work. Any idea? thanks!

Solution

Note: Your shebang #!/bin/sh indicates POSIX sh. This conflicts with the use of here-strings and arrays. You may want to change it to #!/bin/bash (in conformance with the bash tag you've selected for this question).

That said, the intended encoding of your input string seems to be compatible with how bash expects encoding the definition of an indexed array, only short of the parens around it. Whether other instances would do as well is not obvious from that single example, but it's worth giving the use of declare -a a try.

#!/bin/bash

fruits="apple \"orange juice\" banana"

declare -a words="($fruits)"
for word in "${words[@]}"
do
    echo "Word: $word"
done

Word: apple
Word: orange juice
Word: banana

Answered By - pmf

Answer Checked By - Clifford M. (WPSolving Volunteer)