[SOLVED] How to convert command output to an array line by line in bash?

Issue

I'm trying to convert the output of a command like echo -e "a b\nc\nd e" to an array.

X=( $(echo -e "a b\nc\nd e") )

Splits the input for every new line and whitespace character:

$ echo ${#X[@]}
> 5

for i in ${X[@]} ; do echo $i ; done
a
b
c
d
e

The result should be:

for i in ${X[@]} ; do echo $i ; done
a b
c
d e

Solution

You need to change your Internal Field Separator variable (IFS) to a newline first.

$ IFS=$'\n'; arr=( $(echo -e "a b\nc\nd e") ); for i in ${arr[@]} ; do echo $i ; done
a b
c
d e

Answered By - SiegeX