Bash multiarray and IFS

Question

I have a problem in my bash script.

I would split a string into an (indexed named) array:

The string can have this values: status=online clients=5 name=Server the string can also have several commands have like these (that's the problematic): status=online clients=5 name=Server|status=offline clients=0 name=Server_2

First Question: How can i split, or should i check, if this "|" exists?

Second Question: I must split now this values into an named array like from string: status=online clients=5 name=Server and the array looks like:

[status] = [online]
[clients] = [5]
[name] = [Server]

And if the separator "|" exists, i must get the results in 2 (or more) arrays:

$mainarray [0]
[status] = [online]
[clients] = [5]
[name] = [Server]

$mainarray [1]
[status] = [offline]
[clients] = [0]
[name] = [Server2]

And for example, with echo $mainarray[0][status] i would get "online".

Is it possible to do that?

Answer 1

You can use pseudo-multidimensional associative arrays.

str='status=online clients=5 name=Server|status=offline clients=0 name=Server_2'
n=0
declare -A ary

# split the string on "|"
IFS='|' read -ra sets <<< "$str"

# interate over the sets of variables to populate the array
for set in "${sets[@]}"; do
    IFS=' ' read -ra pairs <<< "$set"
    for pair in "${pairs[@]}"; do
        IFS='=' read var value <<< "$pair"
        ary["$n,$var"]=$value
    done
    ((n++))
done

# now, what do we have?
for key in "${!ary[@]}"; do 
    printf "%s => %s\n" "$key" "${ary["$key"]}"
done

The order of the output is undetermined

0,clients => 5
1,status => offline
1,name => Server_2
0,status => online
1,clients => 0
0,name => Server