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arraysbashassociative-array

Check if associative array element exists in bash

In a bash script, I have a locale in a variable like so

locale=fr_ma

I also have an associative array like this

declare -A new_loc_map
new_loc[fr_ma]=en_ma
new_loc[el_gr]=en_gr
new_loc[sl_si]=en_si

I want to check if new_loc element with the key ${locale} exists

I thought this should work but it doesn't:

if [[ -v "${new_loc[${locale}]}" ]]
    then
        echo -e "${locale} has a new_loc"
    fi
fi

any ideas on how otherwise I can test for this?

Solution

  • I managed to solve the problem by checking if the variable is not an empty string instead.

    Example:

    locale=fr_ma
declare -A new_loc
new_loc[fr_ma]=en_ma
new_loc[el_gr]=en_gr

if [[ ! -z ${new_loc[$locale]} ]]; then
    echo "Locale ${locale} now maps to ${new_loc[$locale]}"
fi

    Output:

    Locale fr_ma now maps to en_ma