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I'M using associative arrays in my script, which are available in bash version 4 and upwards. In terms of best practices, should I verify the version is at least 4? E.g. using echo $BASH_VERSION | cut -d. -f1.

Although bash 4 was released in early 2009, some OSes are still using older versions. E.g. the default bash on OS X is stuck on bash 3.2 (for legal reasons).

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    Simpler: ${BASH_VERSION%%.*}
    – jasonwryan
    Dec 21, 2015 at 19:45
  • You don't have to modify it at all; just pattern match: if [[ $BASH_VERSION == 4.* ]];
    – chepner
    Dec 21, 2015 at 20:16
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    @chepner I actually like (( ${BASH_VERSION%%.*} >= 4 )), it's future proof for versions 5+
    – dimid
    Dec 21, 2015 at 20:20

1 Answer 1

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Yes. Doing extra sanity checking is rarely a bad thing especially if there are reasonable situations where the check would fail and thereby prevent unexpected behavior.

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