Count the elements in an array.
Bash Scripts: The array length form counts assigned elements, not characters in the first value.
set -euo pipefail
items=(one "two words" three)
printf "%s\n" "${#items[@]}"Expected output EXAMPLE
3
Details
Requires Bash 4 or later. Save as snippet.sh and run bash snippet.sh in an empty working directory. The array length form counts assigned elements, not characters in the first value.
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
5bb7a2bcddb97f8e38defe799f1f6e9f63600c027c61c4f57b225bac9bcbe4a3- 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
3
Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.