Re: test '-v' - associative vs. normal array discrepancy - a bug ?

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 04:20:51PM +0000, Jason Vas Dias wrote:
> Good day -
> Please could anyone explain why the first command below produces no output:
> $ ( declare -A a=([a]=1);   if [ -v a ]; then echo yes; fi )
> $ ( declare -a  a=([0]=1);  if [ -v a ]; then echo yes; fi )
> yes

In a lot of places, when you use the name of an array without an index,
Bash assumes you mean index 0.

imadev:~$ unset a; declare -a a=([1]=1); test -v a && echo yes
imadev:~$ unset a; declare -A a=([0]=1); test -v a && echo yes
yes

So it's not indexed vs. associative arrays.  It's simply the fact that you
used index a instead of index 0, plus the fact that -v a is really -v 'a[0]'.

Does this make -v unusable for arrays?  Possibly.