How to store directory files listing into an array?

Question

I'm trying to store the files listing into an array and then loop through the array again. Below is what I get when I run ls -ls command from the console.

total 40 36 -rwxrwxr-x 1 amit amit 36720 2012-03-31 12:19 1.txt 4 -rwxrwxr-x 1 amit amit  1318 2012-03-31 14:49 2.txt 

The following bash script I've written to store the above data into a bash array.

i=0 ls -ls | while read line do     array[ $i ]="$line"             (( i++ )) done 

But when I echo $array, I get nothing!

FYI, I run the script this way: ./bashscript.sh

Answer 1

I'd use

files=(*) 

And then if you need data about the file, such as size, use the stat command on each file.