Read positional parameters in a function.

Bash Scripts: Read positional parameters in a function with a small standalone Bash program.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

describe() {
    printf 'Count: %s\n' "$#"
    printf '%s\n' "$@"
}
describe "one item" two

Expected output EXAMPLE

Count: 2
one item
two

Details

Requires Bash 4 or later. Save as snippet.sh and run bash snippet.sh in an empty working directory.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · 2026-11-02 18:29:29 UTC · 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: 77efd17dfa628f5d305b3d717e159471c381958f90dbff4d139152767058a3a3
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

Count: 2
one item
two

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.