What it is

Bash supports array but not nested-array, multi-dimensional array or any more advanced conceptions. While I need the nested-array as a more structured input for my own project, I came up with this solution for a nested-array. This is NOT elegant but it works.

A sample

A nested-array will look like this:

    LIST=($(level_0 \    
            $(level_1 "Li" \
                $(level_2 \
                    $(level_3 "Age" "1") \
                    $(level_3 "Weight" "2") \
                    $(level_3 "Height"  "3") \
                    $(level_3 "Friends" \
                        $(level_4 "Sun" "Wang")) \
                    ))\
            $(level_1 "Wang" \
                $(level_2 \
                    $(level_3 "Age" "11") \
                    $(level_3 "Weight" "12") \
                    $(level_3 "Height" "13") \
                    $(level_3 "Friends" \
                        $(level_4 "Li" "Sun")) \
                    ))\
            $(level_1 "Sun" \
                $(level_2 \
                    $(level_3 "Age" "21") \
                    $(level_3 "Weight" "22") \
                    $(level_3 "Height" "23") \
                    $(level_3 "Friends" \
                        $(level_4 "Li" "Wang")) \
                    ))\
                ))

With some work you can populate the elements, and output them into a markdown nested list:

---

name: Li

• Age:
  • 1
• Weight:
  • 2
• Height:
  • 3
• Friends:
  • Sun
  • Wang

name: Wang

• Age:
  • 11
• Weight:
  • 12
• Height:
  • 13
• Friends:
  • Li
  • Sun

name: Sun

• Age:
  • 21
• Weight:
  • 22
• Height:
  • 23
• Friends:
  • Li
  • Wang

---

How it works

The motivation is that when bash populate an array, it will refer to the environmental variable IFS as the separator of fields. So in order to have nested array, a straight forward idea is to use different IFS for different nested levels.

For example,

Li,Age*1;Weight*2;Height*3;Friends*Sun^Wang Wang,Age*11;Weight*12;Height*13;Friends*Li^Sun

The one above can represent a nested array where space is separator of the the top level. One element in the first level is like this:

Li,Age*1;Weight*2;Height*3;Friends*Sun^Wang

Similarly, , separate it into Li and Age*1;Weight*2;Height*3;Friends*Sun^Wang. After that ; separate the latter into a group of elements: Age*1, Weight*2, Height*3 and Friends*Sun^Wang.

This is the whole point in my solution. To generate the complicated nested-array representation, I am using the script (nested-array.sh) to generate a serial of functions each one will replace the default IFS (space) with certain symbol which will NOT be used in the content.