Setting environment variable in ZSH gives number expected

Question

I'm trying to set an array in ZSH (configured using oh-my-zsh).

export AR=(localhost:1919 localhost:1918)

but I'm getting an error like such:

zsh: number expected

If I don't add the export command, it's just fine. I'm not typing the above in a *rc file, just in the zsh prompt. What could be the problem?

Answer 1

You can't export an array in zsh.

For more info: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide02.html

Note that you can't export arrays. If you export a parameter, then assign an array to it, nothing will appear in the environment; you can use the external command printenv VARNAME (again no $ because the command needs to know the name, not the value) to check. There's a more subtle problem with arrays, too. The export builtin is just a special case of the builtin typeset, which defines a variable without marking it for export to the environment. You might think you could do

typeset array=(this doesn\'t work)

but you can't --- the special array syntax is only understood when the assignment does not follow a command, not in normal arguments like the case here, so you have to put the array assignment on the next line. This is a very easy mistake to make. More uses of typeset will be described in chapter 3; they include creating local parameters in functions, and defining special attributes (of which the export attribute is just one) for parameters.