Re: -v no longer works for associative arrays

[Chet Ramey]

On 10/13/22 10:42 AM, Bryan Roessler wrote:

> Bash Version: 5.2
> Patch Level: 2
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
>
> bash-5.2# declare -A a
> bash-5.2# a[foo]=bar
> bash-5.2# [[ -v a[@] ]]; echo $?
> 1

From CHANGES:

j. Associative array assignment and certain instances of referencing (e.g.,
   `test -v') now allow `@' and `*' to be used as keys.

There are other ways to test whether or not an associative array has any
set elements, but there was no way to use `*' or `@' as a key in previous
versions.

There was a long discussion about this back in early 2021. Some of the
relevant messages about `@' and `*' keys start here:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2021-04/msg00058.html

--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/