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Why is $PARTS blank

DIR=/Users/ishandutta2007/Projects/yo
IFS='/' read -ra PARTS <<< "$DIR"
echo $PARTS

Edit: Thanks for suggesting alternate ways, but I am looking to fix the issue with IFS

ishandutta2007
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    same [answer here](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/594987/72456), answers your question as well. – αғsнιη Jun 26 '20 at 04:36
  • Using `read` is also wrong for arbitrary paths as `read` only considers the first line of the path. Also note that `/a/b/` is split into "", "a" and "b" while `/a/b//` is split into "", "a", "b" and "" (in `bash` note that other shells use `read -A array` to read into an array). – Stéphane Chazelas Jun 26 '20 at 05:55

1 Answers1

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The array is not blank, $PARTS expands to the first element of the array which happens to be empty and is the same as ${PARTS[0]}:

$ declare -p PARTS
declare -a PARTS=([0]="" [1]="Users" [2]="ishandutta2007" [3]="Projects" [4]="yo")

To print all array elements as separate words use "${PARTS[@]}":

$ printf '%s\n' "${PARTS[@]}"

Users
ishandutta2007
Projects
yo

To get the last element you can use a negative index:

$ echo "${PARTS[-1]}"
yo

But it's easier to get the last element using a parameter expansion:

$ echo "${DIR##*/}"
yo

This removes the longest prefix pattern */ from DIR.

Freddy
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  • Very good. There are also others way to get the base name. The pros and cons of different methods are discussed in ["dirname and basename vs parameter expansion"](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/253524/dirname-and-basename-vs-parameter-expansion) – John1024 Jun 26 '20 at 04:26