Shell parameter expansion on arrays

Question

Say I read some data into a Bash array:

$ IFS=\" \" read -a arr <<< \"hello/how are/you iam/fine/yeah\"

Now, I want to print the f

Answer 1

Oh, I just found the way: just use the parameter expansion normally, only that against ${arr[@]} instead of ${arr}!

$ IFS=" " read -a arr <<< "hello/how are/you iam/fine/yeah"
$ printf "%s\n" "${arr[@]%%/*}"
hello
are
iam

Greg's wiki helped here:

Parameter Expansion on Arrays

BASH arrays are remarkably flexible, because they are well integrated with the other shell expansions. Any parameter expansion that can be carried out on a scalar or individual array element can equally apply to an entire array or the set of positional parameters such that all members are expanded at once, possibly with an additional operation mapped across each element.

$ a=(alpha beta gamma)  # assign to our base array via compound assignment
$ echo "${a[@]#a}"      # chop 'a' from the beginning of every member
lpha beta gamma
$ echo "${a[@]%a}"      # from the end
alph bet gamm
$ echo "${a[@]//a/f}"   # substitution
flphf betf gfmmf