It works just as expected, you just missed out defining one more level of indirection to access the array element
declare -A first=()
first[hello]=world
first[foo]=bar
alias=first
echo "${!alias[foo]}" The above result would obviously be empty as the other answer points out. Now define an item to introduce a second level of indirect reference to point out to the actual key value.
item=${alias}[foo]
echo "${!item}"
fooNow point item to the next key hello
item=${alias}[hello]
echo "${!item}"
worldOr a more detailed example would be, to run a loop over the keys of the associative array
for item in "${!first[@]}"; do
iref=${alias}["$item"]
echo "${!iref}"
done
manpreet![Tuteehub forum best answer]()
Best Answer
2 years ago
I wish to access an associative array using a variable. The example in the accepted answer to this post is exactly what I want:
$ declare -A FIRST=( [hello]=world [foo]=bar )
$ alias=FIRST
$ echo "${!alias[foo]}"
however this does not work for me when using bash 4.3.48 or bash 3.2.57. It does however work if I don't declare ("declare -A") the array i.e. this works:
$ FIRST[hello]=world
$ FIRST[foo]=bar
$ alias=FIRST
$ echo "${!alias[foo]}"
Is there any problem with not declaring the array?