Prefix and postfix elements of a bash array

Question

I want to pre- and postfix an array in bash similar to brace expansion.

Say I have a bash array

ARRAY=( one two three )

I want to b

Answer 1

For arrays:

ARRAY=( one two three )
(IFS=,; eval echo prefix_\{"${ARRAY[*]}"\}_suffix)

For strings:

STRING="one two three"
eval echo prefix_\{${STRING// /,}\}_suffix

eval causes its arguments to be evaluated twice, in both cases first evaluation results in

echo prefix_{one,two,three}_suffix

and second executes it. For array case subshell is used to avoid overwiting IFS

You can also do this in zsh:

echo ${${ARRAY[@]/#/prefix_}/%/_suffix}