Bash arrays and negative subscripts, yes or no?

Issue

The GNU bash manual tells me

An indexed array is created automatically if any variable is assigned
to using the syntax

name[subscript]=value

The subscript is treated as an arithmetic expression that must
evaluate to a number. If subscript evaluates to a number less than
zero, it is used as an offset from one greater than the array’s
maximum index (so a subcript of -1 refers to the last element of the
array).

So I figure I will give it a try and get the following result:

$ muh=(1 4 'a' 'bleh' 2)
$ echo $muh
1
$ echo ${muh[*]}
1 4 a bleh 2    # so far so good so now I'll try a negative ...
$ echo ${muh[-1]}
-bash: muh: bad array subscript  # didn't go as planned!

Did I do something wrong, or is the website wrong, or is gnu bash that different from the bash I am running under CentOS? Thanks!

Solution

If you just want the last element

$ echo ${muh[*]: -1}
2

If you want next to last element

$ echo ${muh[*]: -2:1}
bleh

Answered By – Steven Penny

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