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All functions are fully documented with tooltips and examples right in your IDE using bash-language-server.

Intro

bash-map allows you to perform robust key-value operations in pure Bash without built-in associative arrays (which are only available in Bash 4.x and later).

Highlights

• 🐚 Pure Bash implementation - no external dependencies (not even sed, which on macOS is about as reliable as a politician's promise)
• 🔁 Backwards compatible with Bash versions prior to 4.x
• 🧰 Comprehensive API - make, get, set, delete, print, clear, size, keys, values, and more
• 📦 Portable and easily integrable into existing shell scripts
• 🚀 Lightweight with minimal overhead
• 🔧 Modern scripting practices - passes ShellCheck, well-documented (shdoc), and testable (shUnit2)
• 🔒 Safe string handling with special character escaping

Quickstart

Installation

You have two main options for using bash-map:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/dir/bash-map.git
   cd bash-map

2. Copy the script directly:

   You can copy the contents of src/bash-map.sh into your project or download it:

   curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dir/bash-map/main/src/bash-map.sh

Usage

1. Source the script in your Bash environment:

   If you cloned the repo or have the script in your project directory:

   #!/bin/bashsource {path_to_script}/bash-map.sh
   # or . {path-to-script}/bash-map.sh

   If you've installed it in your PATH:

   #!/bin/bashsource bash-map
   # or . bash-map

2. Basic operations:

#!/bin/bash. bash-map
# Create a new map
map::make user " [name]=John Doe [age]=30 [spaces are allowed]=true [whitespace] = is allowed"# Set key-value pairs
map::set user "city""New York"# Get values
name=$(map::get user "name")echo"Name: $name"# Check if a key existsif map::has user "age";thenecho"Age is set"fi# Update key-value pairs
map::set user "age" 31
# Delete a key
map::delete user "spaces are allowed"# Get all keys (default delimiter is ,)
keys=$(map::keys user -d "")echo"Keys: $keys"# Get all values
values=$(map::values user)echo"Values: $values"# Get map size
size=$(map::size my_map)echo"Map size: $size"# Print the entire map
map::print user
# Clear the map
map::clear user

These examples demonstrate the core functionality of bash-map. For more detailed information on each function and additional features, refer to the full documentation or use the built-in help tooltips in your IDE if you're using bash-language-server.