[SOLVED] Sort array in shell script...

[ragtag]

How do I make all entries in an array unique. I've been trying something like:


my_array=( a b a a c)
unique_array=$(echo $my_array | sort -u)
for a in ${unique_array[@]}; do
echo $a
done


What I'm hopint to get out is:

a
b
c


But what I get is just 'a'.

How would I go about this?

[CrucifiedEgo]

I think there's 2 things going on. First, when i just do:
my_array=(a b a a c)
echo $my_array

i get "a". You'll want to start out with a space-seperated string. Second, i don't think sort will take space-seperated lists, they need to be seperated by new lines. Here's what i ended up with that does exactly what you're looking for:


#!/bin/bash
my_array="a b a a c"
unique_array=$(echo $my_array | sed 's/ /\n/g' | sort -u)
for a in $unique_array; do
echo $a
done


Hope this helps.