bash-3.00$ cat arr.bash #!/bin/bash declare -a myarray myarray[2]="two" myarray[5]="five" echo ${#myarray[*]} echo ${#myarray[@]} bash-3.00$ ./arr.bash 2 2 both are giving number of elements of array. So what is difference between the two?
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3 Answers
In this case, there is no difference. The two "all elements" subscripts make a difference when you expand the array and the expansion is surrounded by quotes.
"${array[*]} expands to "two five"
"${array[@]} expands to "two" "five" (i.e. two words).
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There is no difference. They both give the number of elements in the array. The difference comes when you use the array expansion "${array[*]}" in double quotes and have IFS set to some value other than the default.
$ array=(1 2 3) $ echo "${array[*]}" 1 2 3 $ saveIFS=$IFS $ IFS="," $ echo "${array[*]}" 1,2,3 $ IFS=$saveIFS answered Jun 17, 2010 at 9:50
Dennis Williamson
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There is no difference. From the bash manpage:
${#name[subscript]} expands to the length of ${name[sub‐script]}. If subscript is * or @, the expansion is the number of elements in the array.
