Question

How to pass array as function in shell script?
I written following code:

function test(){
param1 = $1
param2 = $2
for i in ${$param1[@]}
do
   for j in ${param2[@]}
do
       if($(i) = $(j) )
           then
           echo $(i)
           echo $(j)
       fi
done
done
}

but I am getting line 1: ${$(param1)[@]}: bad substitution

Answer 1

There are multiple problems:

• you can’t have spaces around the = when assigning variables
• your if statement has the wrong syntax
• array passing isn’t right
• try not to call your function test because that is a shell command

Here is the fixed version:

myFunction(){
  param1=("${!1}")
  param2=("${!2}")
  for i in ${param1[@]}
  do
    for j in ${param2[@]}
    do
       if [ "${i}" == "${j}" ]
       then
           echo ${i}
           echo ${j}
       fi
    done
  done
}

a=(foo bar baz)
b=(foo bar qux)
myFunction a[@] b[@]