How to change values of bash array elements without loop

Question

array=(a b c d)

I would like to add a character before each element of the array in order to have this

array=(^a ^b ^c ^d)
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Answer 1

This way also honor whitespaces in array values:

array=( "${array[@]/#/^}" )

Note, this will FAIL if array was empty and you set previously

set -u

I don't know how to eliminate this issue using short code...