get arguments passed and put it in an array

Question

is there a way to make the arguments passed become the element of an array?

I want to access those arguments individually through array.

like this:

./script.ksh arg1 arg2 arg3

then it will become like this:

element[0]=arg1
element[1]=arg2
element[2]=arg3

Solution 1

They are already in an array, the array of positional parameters $@ with individual elements accessed with $1, $2... (start at 1, $0 is the script name).

Note that there are several implementations (and versions thereof) of ksh: AT&T ksh88 (as found in most commercial Unices), AT&T ksh93 (made open source in 2000, sometimes found as dtksh on commercial Unices and as an optional package on opensource unix-likes), pdksh and its derivatives (MirBSD ksh, OpenBSD ksh) which was the only ksh available on opensource Unix-likes before 2000 and zsh (when called as ksh).

To assign to another array, with ksh88 (also works with all other implementations of ksh except older pdksh):

set -A array -- "$@"

With older versions of pdksh:

set -A array "$@"

With ksh93, zsh and recent versions of mksh:

array=("$@")

Solution 2

$ cat t.ksh
#!/bin/ksh

element=( "$@" )

echo "${element[0]}"
echo "${element[1]}"
echo "${element[2]}"

.

$ ./t.ksh one two three
one
two
three

Although I don't understand why you would want to do that, the positional parameters are readily available in $@ which you can easily iterate over.

Comments

[Stéphane Chazelas]

You know they are already in $1, $2..., right?

[mirabilos]

The =(…) syntax is supported in no pdksh version, only mksh. (And the original AT&T Korn Shell, of course.)

[Stéphane Chazelas]

@mirabilos Well, that's what I meant by newer pdksh, as mksh is where the development of pdksh variant of ksh is happening. I suppose oksh merges features from mksh as well, doesn't it? If you prefer I make a distinction on the name, or if you have a generic name for the pdksh family of shells, like pdksh and its derivatives, let me know.

[mirabilos]

No, neither OpenBSD nor Deli Linux merge mksh changes into their oksh flavour generally. The latter tried but violated the licence, so they had to revert that change after I pointed that out to them. (As a European Citizen, I have to choose a proper OSS licence for my code.)