If you need something this elaborate, you really shouldn't be writing it in Bash in the first place.
Anytime I find myself wishing I had arrays, or real data types, or real functions, I stop using shell languages immediately. Shell scripts are really only suitable for the exact same sorts of things I would type myself at a Unix prompt...and since those sorts of things are rarely more than a few lines long, shell scripts shouldn't be longer than that either.
Anytime I find myself wishing I had arrays, or real data types, or real functions, I stop using shell languages immediately. Shell scripts are really only suitable for the exact same sorts of things I would type myself at a Unix prompt...and since those sorts of things are rarely more than a few lines long, shell scripts shouldn't be longer than that either.