Accessing array elements in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Accessing array elements

📖 Scenario: You are organizing a small fruit basket. You have a list of fruits and want to pick specific fruits by their position in the list.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create an array, set a position variable, access an element from the array using that position, and display the chosen fruit.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called fruits with the exact values: apple, banana, cherry, date, elderberry

Create a variable called position and set it to 2

Access the fruit at the index stored in position from the fruits array and store it in a variable called chosen_fruit

Print the value of chosen_fruit

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Arrays are useful to store lists of items like filenames, user inputs, or configuration options. Accessing elements by position helps automate tasks like selecting specific files or options.

💼 Career

Knowing how to work with arrays and variables in bash scripting is essential for system administrators, DevOps engineers, and anyone automating tasks on Linux or Unix systems.

1

Create the fruits array

Create an array called fruits with these exact values in order: apple, banana, cherry, date, elderberry

Bash Scripting

# Create the fruits array with the specified fruits
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use parentheses to create an array in bash, with items separated by spaces.

2

Set the position variable

Create a variable called position and set it to 2

Bash Scripting

fruits=(apple banana cherry date elderberry)
# Set the position variable to 2
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the number 2 to the variable position without spaces around the equals sign.

3

Access the fruit at the position

Access the fruit at the index stored in position from the fruits array and store it in a variable called chosen_fruit

Bash Scripting

fruits=(apple banana cherry date elderberry)
position=2
# Access the fruit at index position and store in chosen_fruit
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use ${fruits[$position]} to get the element at index position.

4

Print the chosen fruit

Print the value of the variable chosen_fruit using echo

Bash Scripting

fruits=(apple banana cherry date elderberry)
position=2
chosen_fruit=${fruits[$position]}
# Print the chosen fruit
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo "$chosen_fruit" to display the fruit name.