Send email with file attachments as bash array

Question

Below is a snippet is taken from a WordPress backup bash script run via cron.

do
    file="$MDB/$db.$now.sql.gz"
    mysqldump -u $USER -h $HOST -p$PASS $db | gzip -9 > $file
    echo "Backup $file.....DONE"
    echo "Database Backup of $file" | mutt -a "$file" -s "Database Backup File Attached" -- theemail@gmail.com
    echo "Emailing $file.... DONE"
done

Notice in the emailing the backups part. The files are emailed one by one, therefore with 10 database backups, there'll be 10 emails sent.

I want to accumulate the files into an array in the for loop, then via mutt , send one single email including all the files as an attachment.

How can it be done in Bash?

Answer 1

Simply add the value of file to an array inside the loop.

declare -a files
...
do
    file="$MDB/$db.$now.sql.gz"
    mysqldump -u "$USER" -h "$HOST" -p"$PASS" "$db" | gzip -9 > "$file"
    files+=("$file")
done

echo "Backup ${files[*]}.....DONE"
echo "Database Backup" | mutt -s "Database Backup Files Attached" -a "${files[@]}" -- theemail@gmail.com
echo "Emailing ${files[*]}.... DONE"

A few notes:

1. Use ${files[*]} when including the list in a string; use ${files[@]} when each element should be a separate argument.
2. With multiple arguments, -a must be the last option before -- .
3. You probably don't want to include every backup name in the subject.