On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 18:04:22 +0100, Félix Hauri via Bug reports for the GNU
Bourne Again SHell wrote:
> My solution is to use `%q` of printf and a temporary string:
> $ kv=(one 1 two 2 "two and a half" 2.5 empty '' three 3)
> $ printf -v tmpString '[%q]=%q ' "${kv[@]}"
> $ declare -A "aa=($tmpString)"
> $ declare -p aa
> declare -A aa=([empty]="" [two]="2" ["two and a half"]="2.5" [three]="3"
> [one]="1" )
That seems to work, yes, though I only tested it briefly.
> I'm not sure how to correctly use @K for this!
Your solution begins with a list of alternating keys and values. @K helps
when you're starting with an associative array instead of a list, and
you use it with eval:
declare -A aa=( empty '' inject '$(date)' "space key" "space value" \
lb \[ rb \] punc $' \t\n' )
kvstring="${aa[*]@K}"
eval "declare -A newarray=($kvstring)"
Here, you don't create a list of keys and values at all. You go straight
from the associative array to a serialized string value.
