Re: test_v doesn't work for associative arrays

[Greg Wooledge]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 02:53:23PM +0200, pskocik@gmail.com wrote:
> declare var
> declare -a ary
> declare -A asoc
> 
> var=1
> ary=(1)
> asoc[a]=1
> 
> for a in var ary asoc; do
>    printf '%s\t' "$a"
>    if test -v "$a"; then
...

With arrays, remember that "foo" is the same as "foo[0]" in all contexts.
When you do your test -v on an array's name, you are really doing it on
the array element with index [0].

imadev:~$ unset a
imadev:~$ declare -A a
imadev:~$ a[foo]=bar
imadev:~$ test -v a; echo $?
1
imadev:~$ test -v 'a[foo]'; echo $?
0
imadev:~$ test -v 'a[qz]'; echo $?
1

imadev:~$ unset a
imadev:~$ a[17]=foo
imadev:~$ test -v a; echo $?
1
imadev:~$ test -v 'a[17]'; echo $?
0
imadev:~$ test -v 'a[1]'; echo $?
1

Your script gave you a slightly misleading result because with your
indexed array, element [0] existed: you initialized the array so that
element [0] had the value 1.  But your associative array was initialized
so that only element [a] existed.