Why don't Bash associative arrays maintain index order?

Question

I\'m creating associative arrays to process in a for loop but i\'m getting some strange results in index order. Please take a look at this example script:

#!         


        

Answer 1

According to comments this can be done to bypass this behavior.

order=(d1 e2 m3 o4)
declare -A test2=(
    [d1]=1w45
    [e2]=2dfg
    [m3]=3df
    [o4]=4df
)
for key in ${order[@]}; { echo $key ${test2[$key]}; }

d1 1w45
e2 2dfg
m3 3df
o4 4df

Or that

declare -A test3=(
    [order]="1d 2e 3m 4o"
    [1d]=1w45
    [2e]=2dfg
    [3m]=3df
    [4o]=4df
)
for key in ${test3[order]}; { echo $key ${test3[$key]}; }

1d 1w45
2e 2dfg
3m 3df
4o 4df

Is there a better way?

Update, according to accepted answer associative array isn't the right choice if you need a strict order in for loop, better use something like this:

key=(d1   e2   m3  o4 ) 
val=(1w45 2dfg 3df 4df)

for i in ${!key[@]}; {
    echo ${key[$i]} ${val[$i]}
}

Or this

key_val=(
    "d1 1w45"
    "e2 2dfg"
    "m3 3df"
    "o4 4df")  

for item in "${key_val[@]}"; {
    sub=($item)
    echo ${sub[0]} ${sub[1]}
}

Or that

keys=(d1      e2      m3     o4    )
      d1=1w45 e2=2dfg m3=3df o4=4df

for key in ${keys[@]}; {
    echo $key ${!key}
}