How to copy an array in Bash?

Question

I have an array of applications, initialized like this:

depends=$(cat ~/Depends.txt)

When I try to parse the list and copy it to a new arra

Answer 1

Problem is to copy array in function to be visible in parent code. This solution works for indexed arrays and if before copying are predefined as declare -A ARRAY, works also for associative arrays.

function array_copy
# $1 original array name
# $2 new array name with the same content
{
    local INDEX
    eval "
        for INDEX in \"\${!$1[@]}\"
        do
            $2[\"\$INDEX\"]=\"\${$1[\$INDEX]}\"
        done
    "
}