bash: set array env variable and de-referencing it from any shell script fails

Question

I set the a array as an environment variable in this manner eg. script test.sh

in test.sh

#!/bin/bash
export STRING=( \"str1\" \"str2\"         


        

Answer 1

The environment variables passed from processes to their children are unstructured strings; arrays cannot be supported. You can demonstrate this in Bash:

export x=foo
printenv x

That outputs foo. If I now cause x to become an array

x=(foo bar)
printenv x

We see no output (x is not exported).