problem with exported env. var. with index

[Derko Drukker]

in .profile I have:
export TESTVAR=hallo
export TESTV[1]=jaja

in truuk I have:
echo ${TESTVAR}
echo ${TESTV[1]}

I have this on two (identical) systems.

sh truuk on system A gives
hallo
jaja
but on system B it gives
hallo

So on system B ${TESTV[1]} is not known in the subshell.
The variables are known in the current shell.
It used to work on system B also, but after a reboot it doesn't anymore.

Any clues ?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

exporting of arrays is never going to work. You really have to realize that the environment is simply an array of strings.

You can convince yourself of this by:
ARRY[0]=Zero
ARRY[1]=One
ARRY[2]=Two
PLAINVAR=Plain
export ARRY[0] ARRY[1] ARRY[2]
# now spawn a child shell
sh
# now examine the enviroment
env | pg
# You will see only ARRY=Zero
# The subscript will be gone
# You will also see PLAINVAR=Plain

If the values are not in the environment then they certainly can't be echo'ed
Now as a surprise while still in the child shell:

echo "${ARRY[0]}"
echo "${ARRY}"
echo "${PLAINVAR}"
echo "${PLAINVAR[0]}"

You will find that all of these work!

Now you could do something like this (with the original values of ARRY in the parent shell):
FAKEARRY="${ARRY[*]}"
export FAKEARRY

Now in the child process, you could
process ${FAKEARRY} to build a new array.

rebuild_array()
{
typeset -i KNT=0
while [[ ${#} -ge 1 ]]
do
ARRY[${KNT}]=${1}
shift
((KNT += 1))
done
return(0)
} # rebuild_array

rebuild_array ${FAKEARRY}
# Now in the child you should have
# ARRY[0], ARRY[1], ...