POSIX shells don't allow arrays, but they can be mimiced with eval. This function will construct a set of related variables that simulate an array: parr_add

POSIX shells don't allow arrays, but they can be mimiced with eval. This function will construct a set of related variables that simulate an array: parr_add () { # $1:array $2:value eval parr_c=${1}_c parr_c=$((0+$parr_c)) eval ${1}_${parr_c}=\"$2\" parr_c=$((1+$parr_c)) eval ${1}_c=$parr_c unset parr_c } I could call this function from a loop that reads the password file: IFS=: while read user pw uid gid comm home shell <&9 do parr_add acc "$user" done 9< /etc/passwd Then, I could access these "array elements" in a loop: count=0 while [ $acc_c -gt $count ] do eval user=\$acc_$count printf %s\\n "$user" count=$((1+count)) done Example run: $ ./parr.sh | head -5 root bin daemon adm lp It isn't that hard to survive without arrays.