[arrays] Check if a Bash array contains a value

In Bash, what is the simplest way to test if an array contains a certain value?

I typically just use:

inarray=$(echo ${haystack[@]} | grep -o "needle" | wc -w)

non zero value indicates a match was found.

Here is a small contribution :

array=(word "two words" words)  
search_string="two"  
match=$(echo "${array[@]:0}" | grep -o $search_string)  
[[ ! -z $match ]] && echo "found !"  

Note: this way doesn't distinguish the case "two words" but this is not required in the question.

How to check if a Bash Array contains a value

False positive match

array=(a1 b1 c1 d1 ee)

[[ ${array[*]} =~ 'a' ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
# output:
yes

[[ ${array[*]} =~ 'a1' ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
# output:
yes

[[ ${array[*]} =~ 'e' ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
# output:
yes

[[ ${array[*]} =~ 'ee' ]] && echo 'yes' || echo 'no'
# output:
yes

Exact match

In order to look for an exact match, your regex pattern needs to add extra space before and after the value like (^|[[:space:]])"VALUE"($|[[:space:]])

# Exact match

array=(aa1 bc1 ac1 ed1 aee)

if [[ ${array[*]} =~ (^|[[:space:]])"a"($|[[:space:]]) ]]; then
    echo "Yes";
else
    echo "No";
fi
# output:
No

if [[ ${array[*]} =~ (^|[[:space:]])"ac1"($|[[:space:]]) ]]; then
    echo "Yes";
else
    echo "No";
fi
# output:
Yes

find="ac1"
if [[ ${array[*]} =~ (^|[[:space:]])"$find"($|[[:space:]]) ]]; then
    echo "Yes";
else
    echo "No";
fi
# output:
Yes

For more usage examples the source of examples are here

A small addition to @ghostdog74's answer about using case logic to check that array contains particular value:

myarray=(one two three)
word=two
case "${myarray[@]}" in  ("$word "*|*" $word "*|*" $word") echo "found" ;; esac

Or with extglob option turned on, you can do it like this:

myarray=(one two three)
word=two
shopt -s extglob
case "${myarray[@]}" in ?(*" ")"$word"?(" "*)) echo "found" ;; esac

Also we can do it with if statement:

myarray=(one two three)
word=two
if [[ $(printf "_[%s]_" "${myarray[@]}") =~ .*_\[$word\]_.* ]]; then echo "found"; fi

My version of the regular expressions technique that's been suggested already:

values=(foo bar)
requestedValue=bar

requestedValue=${requestedValue##[[:space:]]}
requestedValue=${requestedValue%%[[:space:]]}
[[ "${values[@]/#/X-}" =~ "X-${requestedValue}" ]] || echo "Unsupported value"

What's happening here is that you're expanding the entire array of supported values into words and prepending a specific string, "X-" in this case, to each of them, and doing the same to the requested value. If this one is indeed contained in the array, then the resulting string will at most match one of the resulting tokens, or none at all in the contrary. In the latter case the || operator triggers and you know you're dealing with an unsupported value. Prior to all of that the requested value is stripped of all leading and trailing whitespace through standard shell string manipulation.

It's clean and elegant, I believe, though I'm not too sure of how performant it may be if your array of supported values is particularly large.

Here's a compilation of several possible implementations, complete with integrated verification and simple benchmarking:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2: array name]
function in_array_1() {
    local needle="$1" item
    local -n arrref="$2"
    for item in "${arrref[@]}"; do
        [[ "${item}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2: array name]
function in_array_2() {
    local needle="$1" arrref="$2[@]" item
    for item in "${!arrref}"; do
        [[ "${item}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2: array name]
function in_array_3() {
    local needle="$1" i
    local -n arrref="$2"
    for ((i=0; i < ${#arrref[@]}; i++)); do
        [[ "${arrref[i]}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2..$n: array items]
function in_array_4() {
    local needle="$1" item
    shift
    for item; do
        [[ "${item}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2..$n: array items]
function in_array_5() {
    local needle="$1" item
    for item in "${@:2}"; do
        [[ "${item}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2: array name]
function in_array_6() {
    local needle="$1" arrref="$2[@]" array i
    array=("${!arrref}")
    for ((i=0; i < ${#array[@]}; i++)); do
        [[ "${array[i]}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2..$n: array items]
function in_array_7() {
    local needle="$1" array=("${@:2}") item
    for item in "${array[@]}"; do
        [[ "${item}" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2..$n: array items]
function in_array_8() {
    local needle="$1"
    shift
    while (( $# > 0 )); do
        [[ "$1" == "${needle}" ]] && return 0
        shift
    done
    return 1
}


#------------------------------------------------------------------------------


# Generate map for array [$1: name of source array, $2: name of target array]
# NOTE: target array must be pre-declared by caller using 'declare -A <name>'
function generate_array_map() {
    local -n srcarr="$1" dstmap="$2"
    local i key
    dstmap=()
    for i in "${!srcarr[@]}"; do
        key="${srcarr[i]}"
        [[ -z ${dstmap["${key}"]+set} ]] && dstmap["${key}"]=${i} || dstmap["${key}"]+=,${i}
    done
}

# Check if array contains item [$1: item, $2: name of array map]
function in_array_9() {
    local needle="$1"
    local -n mapref="$2"
    [[ -n "${mapref["${needle}"]+set}" ]] && return 0 || return 1
}


#------------------------------------------------------------------------------


# Test in_array function [$1: function name, $2: function description, $3: test array size]
function test() {
    local tname="$1" tdesc="$2" tn=$3 ti=0 tj=0 ta=() tct=0 tepapre="" tepapost="" tepadiff=()
    local -A tam=()

    echo -e "\e[1m${tname} (${tdesc}):\e[0m"

    # Generate list of currently defined variables
    tepapre="$(compgen -v)"

    # Fill array with random items
    for ((ti=0; ti < ${tn}; ti++)); do
        ta+=("${RANDOM} ${RANDOM} ${RANDOM} ${RANDOM}")
    done

    # Determine function call type (pass array items, pass array name, pass array map)
    case "${tname}" in
        "in_array_1"|"in_array_2"|"in_array_3"|"in_array_6") tct=0; ;;
        "in_array_4"|"in_array_5"|"in_array_7"|"in_array_8") tct=1; ;;
        "in_array_9") generate_array_map ta tam; tct=2; ;;
        *) echo "Unknown in_array function '${tname}', aborting"; return 1; ;;
    esac

    # Verify in_array function is working as expected by picking a few random
    # items and checking
    echo -e "\e[1mVerification...\e[0m"
    for ((ti=0; ti < 10; ti++)); do
        tj=$(( ${RANDOM} % ${#ta[@]} ))
        echo -n "Item ${tj} '${ta[tj]}': "
        if (( ${tct} == 0 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}" ta && echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m"
            echo -n " "
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}.x" ta && echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m"
        elif (( ${tct} == 1 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}" "${ta[@]}" && echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m"
            echo -n " "
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}.x" "${ta[@]}" && echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m"
        elif (( ${tct} == 2 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}" tam && echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m"
            echo -n " "
            "${tname}" "${ta[tj]}.x" tam && echo -en "\e[1;31mnok\e[0m" || echo -en "\e[1;32mok\e[0m"
        fi
        echo
    done

    # Benchmark in_array function
    echo -en "\e[1mBenchmark...\e[0m"
    time for ((ti=0; ti < ${#ta[@]}; ti++)); do
        if (( ${tct} == 0 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[ti]}" ta
        elif (( ${tct} == 1 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[ti]}" "${ta[@]}"
        elif (( ${tct} == 2 )); then
            "${tname}" "${ta[ti]}" tam
        fi
    done

    # Generate list of currently defined variables, compare to previously
    # generated list to determine possible environment pollution
    echo -e "\e[1mEPA test...\e[0m"
    tepapost="$(compgen -v)"
    readarray -t tepadiff < <(echo -e "${tepapre}\n${tepapost}" | sort | uniq -u)
    if (( ${#tepadiff[@]} == 0 )); then
        echo -e "\e[1;32mclean\e[0m"
    else
        echo -e "\e[1;31mpolluted:\e[0m ${tepadiff[@]}"
    fi

    echo
}


#------------------------------------------------------------------------------


# Test in_array functions
n=5000
echo
( test in_array_1 "pass array name, nameref reference, for-each-loop over array items" ${n} )
( test in_array_2 "pass array name, indirect reference, for-each-loop over array items" ${n} )
( test in_array_3 "pass array name, nameref reference, c-style for-loop over array items by index" ${n} )
( test in_array_4 "pass array items, for-each-loop over arguments" ${n} )
( test in_array_5 "pass array items, for-each-loop over arguments as array" ${n} )
( test in_array_6 "pass array name, indirect reference + array copy, c-style for-loop over array items by index" ${n} )
( test in_array_7 "pass array items, copy array from arguments as array, for-each-loop over array items" ${n} )
( test in_array_8 "pass array items, while-loop, shift over arguments" ${n} )
( test in_array_9 "pre-generated array map, pass array map name, direct test without loop" ${n} )

Results:

in_array_1 (pass array name, nameref reference, for-each-loop over array items):
Verification...
Item 862 '19528 10140 12669 17820': ok ok
Item 2250 '27262 30442 9295 24867': ok ok
Item 4794 '3857 17404 31925 27993': ok ok
Item 2532 '14553 12282 26511 32657': ok ok
Item 1911 '21715 8066 15277 27126': ok ok
Item 4289 '3081 10265 16686 19121': ok ok
Item 4837 '32220 1758 304 7871': ok ok
Item 901 '20652 23880 20634 14286': ok ok
Item 2488 '14578 8625 30251 9343': ok ok
Item 4165 '4514 25064 29301 7400': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m11,796s
user    1m11,262s
sys     0m0,473s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_2 (pass array name, indirect reference, for-each-loop over array items):
Verification...
Item 2933 '17482 25789 27710 2096': ok ok
Item 3584 '876 14586 20885 8567': ok ok
Item 872 '176 19749 27265 18038': ok ok
Item 595 '6597 31710 13266 8813': ok ok
Item 748 '569 9200 28914 11297': ok ok
Item 3791 '26477 13218 30172 31532': ok ok
Item 2900 '3059 8457 4879 16634': ok ok
Item 676 '23511 686 589 7265': ok ok
Item 2248 '31351 7961 17946 24782': ok ok
Item 511 '8484 23162 11050 426': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m11,524s
user    1m11,086s
sys     0m0,437s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_3 (pass array name, nameref reference, c-style for-loop over array items by index):
Verification...
Item 1589 '747 10250 20133 29230': ok ok
Item 488 '12827 18892 31996 1977': ok ok
Item 801 '19439 25243 24485 24435': ok ok
Item 2588 '17193 18893 21610 9302': ok ok
Item 4436 '7100 655 8847 3068': ok ok
Item 2620 '19444 6457 28835 24717': ok ok
Item 4398 '4420 16336 612 4255': ok ok
Item 2430 '32397 2402 12631 29774': ok ok
Item 3419 '906 5361 32752 7698': ok ok
Item 356 '9776 16485 20838 13330': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m17,037s
user    1m17,019s
sys     0m0,005s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_4 (pass array items, for-each-loop over arguments):
Verification...
Item 1388 '7932 15114 4025 15625': ok ok
Item 3900 '23863 25328 5632 2752': ok ok
Item 2678 '31296 4216 17485 8874': ok ok
Item 1893 '16952 29047 29104 23384': ok ok
Item 1616 '19543 5999 4485 22929': ok ok
Item 93 '14456 2806 12829 19552': ok ok
Item 265 '30961 19733 11863 3101': ok ok
Item 4615 '10431 9566 25767 13518': ok ok
Item 576 '11726 15104 11116 74': ok ok
Item 3829 '19371 25026 6252 29478': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m30,912s
user    1m30,740s
sys     0m0,011s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_5 (pass array items, for-each-loop over arguments as array):
Verification...
Item 1012 '29213 31971 21483 30225': ok ok
Item 2802 '4079 5423 29240 29619': ok ok
Item 473 '6968 798 23936 6852': ok ok
Item 2183 '20734 4521 30800 2126': ok ok
Item 3059 '14952 9918 15695 19309': ok ok
Item 1424 '25784 28380 14555 21893': ok ok
Item 1087 '16345 19823 26210 20083': ok ok
Item 257 '28890 5198 7251 3866': ok ok
Item 3986 '29035 19288 12107 3857': ok ok
Item 2509 '9219 32484 12842 27472': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m53,485s
user    1m53,404s
sys     0m0,077s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_6 (pass array name, indirect reference + array copy, c-style for-loop over array items by index):
Verification...
Item 4691 '25498 10521 20673 14948': ok ok
Item 263 '25265 29824 3876 14088': ok ok
Item 2550 '2416 14274 12594 29740': ok ok
Item 2269 '2769 11436 3622 28273': ok ok
Item 3246 '23730 25956 3514 17626': ok ok
Item 1059 '10776 12514 27222 15640': ok ok
Item 53 '23813 13365 16022 4092': ok ok
Item 1503 '6593 23540 10256 17818': ok ok
Item 2452 '12600 27404 30960 26759': ok ok
Item 2526 '21190 32512 23651 7865': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    1m54,793s
user    1m54,326s
sys     0m0,457s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_7 (pass array items, copy array from arguments as array, for-each-loop over array items):
Verification...
Item 2212 '12127 12828 27570 7051': ok ok
Item 1393 '19552 26263 1067 23332': ok ok
Item 506 '18818 8253 14924 30710': ok ok
Item 789 '9803 1886 17584 32686': ok ok
Item 1795 '19788 27842 28044 3436': ok ok
Item 376 '4372 16953 17280 4031': ok ok
Item 4846 '19130 6261 21959 6869': ok ok
Item 2064 '2357 32221 22682 5814': ok ok
Item 4866 '10928 10632 19175 14984': ok ok
Item 1294 '8499 11885 5900 6765': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    2m35,012s
user    2m33,578s
sys     0m1,433s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_8 (pass array items, while-loop, shift over arguments):
Verification...
Item 134 '1418 24798 20169 9501': ok ok
Item 3986 '12160 12021 29794 29236': ok ok
Item 1607 '26633 14260 18227 898': ok ok
Item 2688 '18387 6285 2385 18432': ok ok
Item 603 '1421 306 6102 28735': ok ok
Item 625 '4530 19718 30900 1938': ok ok
Item 4033 '9968 24093 25080 8179': ok ok
Item 310 '6867 9884 31231 29173': ok ok
Item 661 '3794 4745 26066 22691': ok ok
Item 4129 '3039 31766 6714 4921': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    5m51,097s
user    5m50,566s
sys     0m0,495s
EPA test...
clean

in_array_9 (pre-generated array map, pass array map name, direct test without loop):
Verification...
Item 3696 '661 6048 13881 26901': ok ok
Item 815 '29729 13733 3935 20697': ok ok
Item 1076 '9220 3405 18448 7240': ok ok
Item 595 '8912 2886 13678 24066': ok ok
Item 2803 '13534 23891 5344 652': ok ok
Item 1810 '12528 32150 7050 1254': ok ok
Item 4055 '21840 7436 1350 15443': ok ok
Item 2416 '19550 28434 17110 31203': ok ok
Item 1630 '21054 2819 7527 953': ok ok
Item 1044 '30152 22211 22226 6950': ok ok
Benchmark...
real    0m0,128s
user    0m0,128s
sys     0m0,000s
EPA test...
clean

A combination of answers by Beorn Harris and loentar gives one more interesting one-liner test:

delim=$'\x1F' # define a control code to be used as more or less reliable delimiter
if [[ "${delim}${array[@]}${delim}" =~ "${delim}a string to test${delim}" ]]; then
    echo "contains 'a string to test'"
fi

This one does not use extra functions, does not make replacements for testing and adds extra protection against occasional false matches using a control code as a delimiter.

UPD: Thanks to @ChrisCogdon note, this incorrect code was re-written and published as https://stackoverflow.com/a/58527681/972463 .

Here's my take on this.

I'd rather not use a bash for loop if I can avoid it, as that takes time to run. If something has to loop, let it be something that was written in a lower level language than a shell script.

function array_contains { # arrayname value
  local -A _arr=()
  local IFS=
  eval _arr=( $(eval printf '[%q]="1"\ ' "\${$1[@]}") )
  return $(( 1 - 0${_arr[$2]} ))
}

This works by creating a temporary associative array, _arr, whose indices are derived from the values of the input array. (Note that associative arrays are available in bash 4 and above, so this function won't work in earlier versions of bash.) We set $IFS to avoid word splitting on whitespace.

The function contains no explicit loops, though internally bash steps through the input array in order to populate printf. The printf format uses %q to ensure that input data are escaped such that they can safely be used as array keys.

$ a=("one two" three four)
$ array_contains a three && echo BOOYA
BOOYA
$ array_contains a two && echo FAIL
$

Note that everything this function uses is a built-in to bash, so there are no external pipes dragging you down, even in the command expansion.

And if you don't like using eval ... well, you're free to use another approach. :-)

This could be worth investigating if you don't want to iterate:

#!/bin/bash
myarray=("one" "two" "three");
wanted="two"
if `echo ${myarray[@]/"$wanted"/"WAS_FOUND"} | grep -q "WAS_FOUND" ` ; then
 echo "Value was found"
fi
exit

Snippet adapted from: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/06/bash-array-tutorial/ I think it is pretty clever.

EDIT: You could probably just do:

if `echo ${myarray[@]} | grep -q "$wanted"` ; then
echo "Value was found"
fi

But the latter only works if the array contains unique values. Looking for 1 in "143" will give false positive, methinks.

This is working for me:

# traditional system call return values-- used in an `if`, this will be true when returning 0. Very Odd.
contains () {
    # odd syntax here for passing array parameters: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8082947/how-to-pass-an-array-to-a-bash-function
    local list=$1[@]
    local elem=$2

    # echo "list" ${!list}
    # echo "elem" $elem

    for i in "${!list}"
    do
        # echo "Checking to see if" "$i" "is the same as" "${elem}"
        if [ "$i" == "${elem}" ] ; then
            # echo "$i" "was the same as" "${elem}"
            return 0
        fi
    done

    # echo "Could not find element"
    return 1
}

Example call:

arr=("abc" "xyz" "123")
if contains arr "abcx"; then
    echo "Yes"
else
    echo "No"
fi

containsElement () { for e in "${@:2}"; do [[ "$e" = "$1" ]] && return 0; done; return 1; }

Now handles empty arrays correctly.

Another one liner without a function:

(for e in "${array[@]}"; do [[ "$e" == "searched_item" ]] && exit 0; done) && echo "found" || echo "not found"

Thanks @Qwerty for the heads up regarding spaces!

corresponding function:

find_in_array() {
  local word=$1
  shift
  for e in "$@"; do [[ "$e" == "$word" ]] && return 0; done
  return 1
}

example:

some_words=( these are some words )
find_in_array word "${some_words[@]}" || echo "expected missing! since words != word"

$ myarray=(one two three)
$ case "${myarray[@]}" in  *"two"*) echo "found" ;; esac
found

The following code checks if a given value is in the array and returns its zero-based offset:

A=("one" "two" "three four")
VALUE="two"

if [[ "$(declare -p A)" =~ '['([0-9]+)']="'$VALUE'"' ]];then
  echo "Found $VALUE at offset ${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
else
  echo "Couldn't find $VALUE"
fi

The match is done on the complete values, therefore setting VALUE="three" would not match.

given :

array=("something to search for" "a string" "test2000")
elem="a string"

then a simple check of :

if c=$'\x1E' && p="${c}${elem} ${c}" && [[ ! "${array[@]/#/${c}} ${c}" =~ $p ]]; then
  echo "$elem exists in array"
fi

where

c is element separator
p is regex pattern

(The reason for assigning p separately, rather than using the expression directly inside [[ ]] is to maintain compatibility for bash 4)

I had the case that I had to check if an ID was contained in a list of IDs generated by another script / command. For me worked the following:

# the ID I was looking for
ID=1

# somehow generated list of IDs
LIST=$( <some script that generates lines with IDs> )
# list is curiously concatenated with a single space character
LIST=" $LIST "

# grep for exact match, boundaries are marked as space
# would therefore not reliably work for values containing a space
# return the count with "-c"
ISIN=$(echo $LIST | grep -F " $ID " -c)

# do your check (e. g. 0 for nothing found, everything greater than 0 means found)
if [ ISIN -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "not found"
fi
# etc.

You could also shorten / compact it like this:

if [ $(echo " $( <script call> ) " | grep -F " $ID " -c) -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "not found"
fi

In my case, I was running jq to filter some JSON for a list of IDs and had to later check if my ID was in this list and this worked the best for me. It will not work for manually created arrays of the type LIST=("1" "2" "4") but for with newline separated script output.

PS.: could not comment an answer because I'm relatively new ...

Expanding on the above answer from Sean DiSanti, I think the following is a simple and elegant solution that avoids having to loop over the array and won't give false positives due to partial matches

function is_in_array {
    local ELEMENT="${1}"
    local DELIM=","
    printf "${DELIM}%s${DELIM}" "${@:2}" | grep -q "${DELIM}${ELEMENT}${DELIM}"
}

Which can be called like so:

$ haystack=("needle1" "needle2" "aneedle" "spaced needle")
$ is_in_array "needle" "${haystack[@]}"
$ echo $?
1
$ is_in_array "needle1" "${haystack[@]}"
$ echo $?
0

for i in "${array[@]}"
do
    if [ "$i" -eq "$yourValue" ] ; then
        echo "Found"
    fi
done

For strings:

for i in "${array[@]}"
do
    if [ "$i" == "$yourValue" ] ; then
        echo "Found"
    fi
done

Combining a few of the ideas presented here you can make an elegant if statment without loops that does exact word matches.

find="myword"
array=(value1 value2 myword)
if [[ ! -z $(printf '%s\n' "${array[@]}" | grep -w $find) ]]; then
  echo "Array contains myword";
fi

This will not trigger on word or val, only whole word matches. It will break if each array value contains multiple words.

Below is a small function for achieving this. The search string is the first argument and the rest are the array elements:

containsElement () {
  local e match="$1"
  shift
  for e; do [[ "$e" == "$match" ]] && return 0; done
  return 1
}

A test run of that function could look like:

$ array=("something to search for" "a string" "test2000")
$ containsElement "a string" "${array[@]}"
$ echo $?
0
$ containsElement "blaha" "${array[@]}"
$ echo $?
1

This approach has the advantage of not needing to loop over all the elements (at least not explicitly). But since array_to_string_internal() in array.c still loops over array elements and concatenates them into a string, it's probably not more efficient than the looping solutions proposed, but it's more readable.

if [[ " ${array[@]} " =~ " ${value} " ]]; then
    # whatever you want to do when array contains value
fi

if [[ ! " ${array[@]} " =~ " ${value} " ]]; then
    # whatever you want to do when array doesn't contain value
fi

Note that in cases where the value you are searching for is one of the words in an array element with spaces, it will give false positives. For example

array=("Jack Brown")
value="Jack"

The regex will see "Jack" as being in the array even though it isn't. So you'll have to change IFS and the separator characters on your regex if you want still to use this solution, like this

IFS=$'\t'
array=("Jack Brown\tJack Smith")
unset IFS
value="Jack"

if [[ "\t${array[@]}\t" =~ "\t${value}\t" ]]; then
    echo "true"
else
    echo "false"
fi

This will print "false".

Obviously this can also be used as a test statement, allowing it to be expressed as a one-liner

[[ " ${array[@]} " =~ " ${value} " ]] && echo "true" || echo "false"

Although there were several great and helpful answers here, I didn't find one that seemed to be the right combination of performant, cross-platform, and robust; so I wanted to share the solution I wrote for my code:

#!/bin/bash

# array_contains "$needle" "${haystack[@]}"
#
# Returns 0 if an item ($1) is contained in an array ($@).
#
# Developer note:
#    The use of a delimiter here leaves something to be desired. The ideal
#    method seems to be to use `grep` with --line-regexp and --null-data, but
#    Mac/BSD grep doesn't support --line-regexp.
function array_contains()
{
    # Extract and remove the needle from $@.
    local needle="$1"
    shift

    # Separates strings in the array for matching. Must be extremely-unlikely
    # to appear in the input array or the needle.
    local delimiter='#!-\8/-!#'

    # Create a string with containing every (delimited) element in the array,
    # and search it for the needle with grep in fixed-string mode.
    if printf "${delimiter}%s${delimiter}" "$@" | \
        grep --fixed-strings --quiet "${delimiter}${needle}${delimiter}"; then
        return 0
    fi

    return 1
}

I came up with this one, which turns out to work only in zsh, but I think the general approach is nice.

arr=( "hello world" "find me" "what?" )
if [[ "${arr[@]/#%find me/}" != "${arr[@]}" ]]; then
    echo "found!"
else
    echo "not found!"
fi

You take out your pattern from each element only if it starts ${arr[@]/#pattern/} or ends ${arr[@]/%pattern/} with it. These two substitutions work in bash, but both at the same time ${arr[@]/#%pattern/} only works in zsh.

If the modified array is equal to the original, then it doesn't contain the element.

Edit:

This one works in bash:

 function contains () {
        local arr=(${@:2})
        local el=$1
        local marr=(${arr[@]/#$el/})
        [[ "${#arr[@]}" != "${#marr[@]}" ]]
    }

After the substitution it compares the length of both arrays. Obly if the array contains the element the substitution will completely delete it, and the count will differ.

Using grep and printf

Format each array member on a new line, then grep the lines.

if printf '%s\n' "${array[@]}" | grep -x -q "search string"; then echo true; else echo false; fi

$ array=("word", "two words")
$ if printf '%s\n' "${array[@]}" | grep -x -q "two words"; then echo true; else echo false; fi
true

Note that this has no problems with delimeters and spaces.

The answer with most votes is very concise and clean, but it can have false positives when a space is part of one of the array elements. This can be overcome when changing IFS and using "${array[*]}" instead of "${array[@]}". The method is identical, but it looks less clean. By using "${array[*]}", we print all elements of $array, separated by the first character in IFS. So by choosing a correct IFS, you can overcome this particular issue. In this particular case, we decide to set IFS to an uncommon character $'\001' which stands for Start of Heading (SOH)

$ array=("foo bar" "baz" "qux")
$ IFS=$'\001'
$ [[ "$IFS${array[*]}$IFS" =~ "${IFS}foo${IFS}" ]] && echo yes || echo no
no
$ [[ "$IFS${array[*]}$IFS" =~ "${IFS}foo bar${IFS}" ]] && echo yes || echo no
yes
$ unset IFS

This resolves most issues false positives, but requires a good choice of IFS.

note: If IFS was set before, it is best to save it and reset it instead of using unset IFS

related:

• Accessing bash command line args $@ vs $*

After having answered, I read another answer that I particularly liked, but it was flawed and downvoted. I got inspired and here are two new approaches I see viable.

array=("word" "two words") # let's look for "two words"

using grep and printf:

(printf '%s\n' "${array[@]}" | grep -x -q "two words") && <run_your_if_found_command_here>

using for:

(for e in "${array[@]}"; do [[ "$e" == "two words" ]] && exit 0; done; exit 1) && <run_your_if_found_command_here>

For not_found results add || <run_your_if_notfound_command_here>

One-line solution

printf '%s\n' "${myarray[@]}" | grep -P '^mypattern$'

Explanation

The printf statement prints each element of the array on a separate line.

The grep statement uses the special characters ^ and $ to find a line that contains exactly the pattern given as mypattern (no more, no less).

Usage

To put this into an if ... then statement:

if printf '%s\n' "${myarray[@]}" | grep -q -P '^mypattern$'; then
    # ...
fi

I added a -q flag to the grep expression so that it won't print matches; it will just treat the existence of a match as "true."

If you need performance, you don't want to loop over your whole array every time you search.

In this case, you can create an associative array (hash table, or dictionary) that represents an index of that array. I.e. it maps each array element into its index in the array:

make_index () {
  local index_name=$1
  shift
  local -a value_array=("$@")
  local i
  # -A means associative array, -g means create a global variable:
  declare -g -A ${index_name}
  for i in "${!value_array[@]}"; do
    eval ${index_name}["${value_array[$i]}"]=$i
  done
}

Then you can use it like this:

myarray=('a a' 'b b' 'c c')
make_index myarray_index "${myarray[@]}"

And test membership like so:

member="b b"
# the "|| echo NOT FOUND" below is needed if you're using "set -e"
test "${myarray_index[$member]}" && echo FOUND || echo NOT FOUND

Or also:

if [ "${myarray_index[$member]}" ]; then 
  echo FOUND
fi

Notice that this solution does the right thing even if the there are spaces in the tested value or in the array values.

As a bonus, you also get the index of the value within the array with:

echo "<< ${myarray_index[$member]} >> is the index of $member"

a=(b c d)

if printf '%s\0' "${a[@]}" | grep -Fqxz c
then
  echo 'array “a” contains value “c”'
fi

If you prefer you can use equivalent long options:

--fixed-strings --quiet --line-regexp --null-data

If you want to do a quick and dirty test to see if it's worth iterating over the whole array to get a precise match, Bash can treat arrays like scalars. Test for a match in the scalar, if none then skipping the loop saves time. Obviously you can get false positives.

array=(word "two words" words)
if [[ ${array[@]} =~ words ]]
then
    echo "Checking"
    for element in "${array[@]}"
    do
        if [[ $element == "words" ]]
        then
            echo "Match"
        fi
    done
fi

This will output "Checking" and "Match". With array=(word "two words" something) it will only output "Checking". With array=(word "two widgets" something) there will be no output.

One-line check without 'grep' and loops

if ( dlm=$'\x1F' ; IFS="$dlm" ; [[ "$dlm${array[*]}$dlm" == *"$dlm${item}$dlm"* ]] ) ; then
  echo "array contains '$item'"
else
  echo "array does not contain '$item'"
fi

This approach uses neither external utilities like grep nor loops.

What happens here, is:

• we use a wildcard substring matcher to find our item in the array that is concatenated into a string;
• we cut off possible false positives by enclosing our search item between a pair of delimiters;
• we use a non-printable character as delimiter, to be on the safe side;
• we achieve our delimiter being used for array concatenation too by temporary replacement of the IFS variable value;
• we make this IFS value replacement temporary by evaluating our conditional expression in a sub-shell (inside a pair of parentheses)

The OP added the following answer themselves, with the commentary:

With help from the answers and the comments, after some testing, I came up with this:

function contains() {
    local n=$#
    local value=${!n}
    for ((i=1;i < $#;i++)) {
        if [ "${!i}" == "${value}" ]; then
            echo "y"
            return 0
        fi
    }
    echo "n"
    return 1
}

A=("one" "two" "three four")
if [ $(contains "${A[@]}" "one") == "y" ]; then
    echo "contains one"
fi
if [ $(contains "${A[@]}" "three") == "y" ]; then
    echo "contains three"
fi

Here is my take on this problem. Here is the short version:

function arrayContains() {
        local haystack=${!1}
        local needle="$2"
        printf "%s\n" ${haystack[@]} | grep -q "^$needle$"
}

And the long version, which I think is much easier on the eyes.

# With added utility function.
function arrayToLines() {
        local array=${!1}
        printf "%s\n" ${array[@]}
}

function arrayContains() {
        local haystack=${!1}
        local needle="$2"
        arrayToLines haystack[@] | grep -q "^$needle$"
}

Examples:

test_arr=("hello" "world")
arrayContains test_arr[@] hello; # True
arrayContains test_arr[@] world; # True
arrayContains test_arr[@] "hello world"; # False
arrayContains test_arr[@] "hell"; # False
arrayContains test_arr[@] ""; # False

A little late, but you could use this:

#!/bin/bash
# isPicture.sh

FILE=$1
FNAME=$(basename "$FILE") # Filename, without directory
EXT="${FNAME##*.}" # Extension

FORMATS=(jpeg JPEG jpg JPG png PNG gif GIF svg SVG tiff TIFF)

NOEXT=( ${FORMATS[@]/$EXT} ) # Formats without the extension of the input file

# If it is a valid extension, then it should be removed from ${NOEXT},
#+making the lengths inequal.
if ! [ ${#NOEXT[@]} != ${#FORMATS[@]} ]; then
    echo "The extension '"$EXT"' is not a valid image extension."
    exit
fi

Using parameter expansion:

${parameter:+word} If parameter is null or unset, nothing is substituted, otherwise the expansion of word is substituted.

declare -A myarray
myarray[hello]="world"

for i in hello goodbye 123
do
  if [ ${myarray[$i]:+_} ]
  then
    echo ${!myarray[$i]} ${myarray[$i]} 
  else
    printf "there is no %s\n" $i
  fi
done

Borrowing from Dennis Williamson's answer, the following solution combines arrays, shell-safe quoting, and regular expressions to avoid the need for: iterating over loops; using pipes or other sub-processes; or using non-bash utilities.

declare -a array=('hello, stack' one 'two words' words last)
printf -v array_str -- ',,%q' "${array[@]}"

if [[ "${array_str},," =~ ,,words,, ]]
then
   echo 'Matches'
else
   echo "Doesn't match"
fi

The above code works by using Bash regular expressions to match against a stringified version of the array contents. There are six important steps to ensure that the regular expression match can't be fooled by clever combinations of values within the array:

1. Construct the comparison string by using Bash's built-in printf shell-quoting, %q. Shell-quoting will ensure that special characters become "shell-safe" by being escaped with backslash \.
2. Choose a special character to serve as a value delimiter. The delimiter HAS to be one of the special characters that will become escaped when using %q; that's the only way to guarantee that values within the array can't be constructed in clever ways to fool the regular expression match. I choose comma , because that character is the safest when eval'd or misused in an otherwise unexpected way.
3. Combine all array elements into a single string, using two instances of the special character to serve as delimiter. Using comma as an example, I used ,,%q as the argument to printf. This is important because two instances of the special character can only appear next to each other when they appear as the delimiter; all other instances of the special character will be escaped.
4. Append two trailing instances of the delimiter to the string, to allow matches against the last element of the array. Thus, instead of comparing against ${array_str}, compare against ${array_str},,.
5. If the target string you're searching for is supplied by a user variable, you must escape all instances of the special character with a backslash. Otherwise, the regular expression match becomes vulnerable to being fooled by cleverly-crafted array elements.
6. Perform a Bash regular expression match against the string.

I generally write these kind of utilities to operate on the name of the variable, rather than the variable value, primarily because bash can't otherwise pass variables by reference.

Here's a version that works with the name of the array:

function array_contains # array value
{
    [[ -n "$1" && -n "$2" ]] || {
        echo "usage: array_contains <array> <value>"
        echo "Returns 0 if array contains value, 1 otherwise"
        return 2
    }

    eval 'local values=("${'$1'[@]}")'

    local element
    for element in "${values[@]}"; do
        [[ "$element" == "$2" ]] && return 0
    done
    return 1
}

With this, the question example becomes:

array_contains A "one" && echo "contains one"

etc.