Remove an indexed element and compact the array.
Bash Scripts: Unsetting an element leaves a gap; reassigning the values creates consecutive indices.
set -euo pipefail
items=(one two three)
unset 'items[1]'
items=("${items[@]}")
printf "%s:%s\n" "${#items[@]}" "${items[1]}"Expected output EXAMPLE
2:three
Details
Requires Bash 4 or later. Save as snippet.sh and run bash snippet.sh in an empty working directory. Unsetting an element leaves a gap; reassigning the values creates consecutive indices.
Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) · bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test inputs, results and environment
The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.
- Architecture / host kernel
- x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
- Snippet identity / locale
- uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
- Interpreter invocation
bash -euo pipefail -c <published code>- Container image ID
sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3- Code SHA-256
ad88a90af3d07ad76034451c68cf08d8db7cb7e8be66877d064790ba2d819649- Dependencies
- bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test input setup
These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.
# No input files required.
Observed standard output
2:three
Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.