How to pass an associative array as argument to a function in Bash?

Question

How do you pass an associative array as an argument to a function? Is this possible in Bash?

The code below is not working as expected:

function iter         


        

Answer 1

Based on Florian Feldhaus's solution:

# Bash 4+ only
function printAssocArray # ( assocArrayName ) 
{
    var=$(declare -p "$1")
    eval "declare -A _arr="${var#*=}
    for k in "${!_arr[@]}"; do
        echo "$k: ${_arr[$k]}"
    done

}

declare -A conf
conf[pou]=789
conf[mail]="ab\npo"
conf[doo]=456

printAssocArray "conf" 

The output will be:

doo: 456
pou: 789
mail: ab\npo