parsing var with blank spaces

user_2175783 0
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I have a variable

some_var="a23=some value&p44=another_value&uw=possibly_another one"

and I want to convert it into several substrings one for each = (breaking at the &). So I would get

a23=some value
p44=another_value
uw=possibly_another one

If I run this code

for s in ${some_var//&/ };do echo $s;done

I get however

a23=some 
value
p44=another_value
uw=possibly_another
one

(it breaks at the empty spaces)

How can I run the loop so that it takes space into account?

shell bash
2 Answers

read into an array using the '&' as field separator:

#!/bin/bash

some_var='a23=some value&p44=another_value&uw=possibly_another one'
IFS='&' read -r -a arr <<< "$some_var"
for s in "${arr[@]}"; do
    printf '%s\n' "$s"
done

A technique similar to yours also would work:

(IFS='&'; for s in $some_var; do printf '%s\n' "$s"; done)

Notice that it runs in a subshell not to mess up with the IFS of the current shell.

You may consider reading this article for detailed information on IFS.

user_138090010

Populating an associative array with the argument=value pairs:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

uri_argstring='a23=some value&p44=another_value&uw=possibly_another one'

# Declare an empty associative array
declare -A uri_args=()

# Populate the associative array by reading key values pairs
# delimiting field by &, = or newline,
# delimiting records (argument=value or key=value pairs) with & or End Of File
while IFS=$'=&\n' read -r -d '&' k v; do
  # Add entry to associative array
  uri_args[$k]=$v
done <<<"$uri_argstring" # Feed here-string to the while loop reading

# Fancy printing
printf 'Argument=Value\n--------------\n'

# Iterate the keys from the uri_args associative array
for arg in "${!uri_args[@]}"; do
  value=${uri_args[$arg]}
  # Printout
  printf '%s=%s\n' "$arg" "$value"
done

Output:

Argument=Value
--------------
a23=some value
p44=another_value
user_79398710
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