Nth word in a string variable

Question

In Bash, I want to get the Nth word of a string hold by a variable.

For instance:

STRING=\"one two three four\"
N=3

Result:

Answer 1

No expensive forks, no pipes, no bashisms:

$ set -- $STRING
$ eval echo \${$N}
three

But beware of globbing.

Answer 2

echo $STRING | cut -d " " -f $N

Answer 3

A file containing some statements :

cat test.txt

Result :

This is the 1st Statement
This is the 2nd Statement
This is the 3rd Statement
This is the 4th Statement
This is the 5th Statement

So, to print the 4th word of this statement type :

cat test.txt |awk '{print $4}'

Output :

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th

Answer 4

An alternative

N=3
STRING="one two three four"

arr=($STRING)
echo ${arr[N-1]}

Answer 5

Using awk

echo $STRING | awk -v N=$N '{print $N}'

Test

% N=3
% STRING="one two three four"
% echo $STRING | awk -v N=$N '{print $N}'
three

Answer 6

STRING=(one two three four)
echo "${STRING[n]}"