Re: 4.4 change in behavior from 4.3: how to catch unset when using ${#length}

[L. A. Walsh]

Eduardo Bustamante wrote:
> what's wrong with?:
> echo ${#array[@]}
> It will return:
> - With array=(1 2 3) -> 3
> - With array=() -> 0
> - With unset array -> 0
> - With declare -a array -> 0
>
> Seems to do what you're looking for.
>   
----
Not when "-u" is set, which I often have on to help catch misspellings.

set -u
echo ${#array[@]}
bash: array: unbound variable

Compare to:

if [[ ${yesno:-""} == yes ]]; then ... fi

# basically wanting 1 test for members, else return 0

if [[ ${array[@]:-"undef"} != undef ]] && ((${#array[@]}))

tnx,
-l