Adding and removing elements in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Adding and Removing Elements in Bash Arrays

📖 Scenario: You are managing a list of tasks in a simple bash script. You want to add new tasks and remove completed ones from your list.

🎯 Goal: Build a bash script that creates an initial array of tasks, adds a new task, removes a specific task, and then prints the final list of tasks.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a bash array called tasks with three exact tasks

Add a new task to the tasks array

Remove a specific task from the tasks array

Print the final list of tasks, one per line

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Managing lists of items like tasks, filenames, or user inputs in bash scripts is common for automation and system administration.

💼 Career

Knowing how to manipulate arrays in bash helps automate repetitive tasks and manage data efficiently in many IT and DevOps roles.

1

Create the initial tasks array

Create a bash array called tasks with these exact tasks: "Buy groceries", "Clean house", and "Pay bills".

Bash Scripting

# Create the tasks array with three tasks
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use parentheses () to create an array and double quotes "" around each task.

2

Add a new task to the array

Add a new task "Call mom" to the tasks array using the correct bash syntax.

Bash Scripting

tasks=("Buy groceries" "Clean house" "Pay bills")
# Add "Call mom" to the tasks array
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use tasks+=("Call mom") to add an element to the array.

3

Remove a task from the array

Remove the task "Clean house" from the tasks array by creating a new array called filtered_tasks that excludes it.

Bash Scripting

tasks=("Buy groceries" "Clean house" "Pay bills")
tasks+=("Call mom")
# Create filtered_tasks array without "Clean house"
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a for loop to check each task and add only those not equal to "Clean house" to filtered_tasks.

4

Print the final list of tasks

Print each task in the filtered_tasks array on its own line using a for loop and echo.

Bash Scripting

tasks=("Buy groceries" "Clean house" "Pay bills")
tasks+=("Call mom")
filtered_tasks=()
for task in "${tasks[@]}"; do
  if [[ "$task" != "Clean house" ]]; then
    filtered_tasks+=("$task")
  fi
done
# Print each task in filtered_tasks
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use for task in "${filtered_tasks[@]}" and echo "$task" to print each task.