Bash read into array is not working

[Simon Tideswell]

This issue is found in the Bionic Beaver (Ubuntu 18) beta.

How it should work (e.g. on Xenial)
-----------------------------------

$ read -a simon <<< $( ls -1 /usr )
$ echo ${#simon[@]}
9
$ echo ${simon[@]}
bin games include lib local sbin share src var

How it works (wrongly) on Bionic
--------------------------------
$ read -a simon <<< $( ls -1 /usr )
$ echo ${#simon[@]}
1
$ echo ${simon[@]}
bin

Release
-------
Description: Ubuntu Bionic Beaver (development branch)
Release: 18.04

Package Version
---------------
Installed: 4.4.18-1ubuntu1

[Simon Tideswell (stideswell)]

Hello

This still affects Bionic final release version: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS, bash 4.4.19(1).

Using bash's array capabilities in this way is extremely useful and being unable to use it makes bash scripting much harder work. I'm surprised such a serious issue remains unfixed some 4 months after Bionic was released! I'm sure this would be affecting all sorts of sysadmin scripts in the wild.

Simon

[Simon Tideswell (stideswell)]

Ah!!! Actually, this does work,

$ simon=( $( ls -1 /usr ) )
$ echo ${#simon[@]}
8
$ echo ${simon[@]}
bin games include lib local sbin share src

This will still cause scripts in the wild to break. But at least there's a workaround.

Simon