Re: Splitting in shell (bash)

On 10.11.2024 09:14, Axel Reichert wrote:

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:
 

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

mapfile -td ';' < <(someprocess | awk 1 ORS=)

 
[...]
 

mapfile -t < <(someprocess | sed 's/;/\n/g')

 
And in your original post you wrote:
 
  There is a feature that is prominently missing from the shell language
  (I am speaking primarily of bash here) - which is the ability to split
  a string on a delimiter. This is a common operation in most other
  text-processing oriented languages (AWK, Perl, etc).
 
So why bother with a shell solution and why bother with avoiding IFS,
when in the end you need to resort to AWK/sed anyway?

If we're on a targeted platform, looking for a solution for a simple
function, but having made bad experiences with some technical detail
on the platform, then we're trying to peek in various directions to
find any (sufficiently acceptable) workaround. - Sort of; I guess.

(Personally I'd say that 'IFS' is not that bad to completely avoid
it. But I'm not the OP.)

 
Do not get me wrong, I am learning a lot in this thread here, much of
the stuff is far beyond my level of expertise in shell programming, and
it would be great to have a shell-only solution for your inquiry, even
if only for "academic reasons" because, say, the solution (still to
come) may turn out to be too clumsy for daily use). I will applaud such
a result, but for the time being I would be happy if you could elaborate
somewhat more about your motivation for this exercise.

Since the OP is (usually) very clear about excluding some solutions
as acceptable by him I haven't bothered replying. - But if you're
asking I'd probably try for a shell-only solution along the way of
doing a substitution like  arr=( ${var//[$'\n';]/|} )  to fill an
array, whereby defining 'IFS' appropriately (using the '|' here).
(This is just the outline of an idea not a solution, so be careful
with that fragment!)

To add another thought to the original question, and since I know
that the OP already has the relevant experience for that; for such
a basic function writing a shell built-in could be appropriate.
(That's not portable, but I think the OP doesn't care about that.)

Janis

 
Best regards
 
Axel