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In my tutorial,
A Complete Guide On How To Use Bash Arrays, I covered the different type of Bash Arrays available since Bash version >4. When using Associative Arrays, you may improperly declare your Array and get the bash error must use subscript when assigning associative array. The documentation mention clearly the requirement for the subscript part of the declaration. The subscript part is sometime called a key or index in other programming languages.
Arrays are assigned to using compound assignments of the form name=(value1 ... valuen), where each value is of the form [subscript]=string. [...] When assigning to an associative array, the subscript is required.
In short, when using a compound assignment like declare -A array_name=([key1]=value1, [key2]=value2), make sure that your shell script properly define the subscript for each key/value pair. The subscript part (key) must be enclosed in square brackets [] and the compound assignment must be properly surrounded by parentheses ().
Mistakes as shown below can easily happen if you try to declare programmatically an array while feeding invalid or incomplete data.
# Error
# Missing square brackets [] around the subscript
[me@host ~]$ declare -A myAssociativeArray=(a=123)
bash: myAssociativeArray: a=123: must use subscript when assigning associative array
# Error
# Second assignment is missing square brackets [] around the subscript
[me@host ~]$ declare -A myAssociativeArray=([a]=123 b=456)
bash: myAssociativeArray: b=456: must use subscript when assigning associative array
# Error
# First assignment is missing square brackets [] around the subscript
# Second assignment is missing the subscript
[me@host ~]$ declare -A myAssociativeArray=(a=123 456)
bash: myAssociativeArray: a=123: must use subscript when assigning associative array
bash: myAssociativeArray: 456: must use subscript when assigning associative array
The proper way to declare a Bash Associative Array must include the subscript as seen below.
# Works
[me@host ~]$ declare -A myAssociativeArray
# myAssociativeArray[subscript]=value
[me@host ~]$ myAssociativeArray[a]=123
[me@host ~]$ myAssociativeArray[b]=456
[me@host ~]$ echo ${myAssociativeArray[*]}
456 123
# Works
[me@host ~]$ declare -A myAssociativeArray=([a]=123 [b]=456)
# declare -A myAssociativeArray=([subscript]=value ...)
[me@host ~]$ echo ${myAssociativeArray[*]}
456 123
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