I've written a bash script, which process multiple files. I now want to add support for a config file. This is my wanted data structure:

Array ( 
    [0] => Array (
        [name] => datset1
        [path] => /var/lib/bliTool/ds1
        [type] => cvs
    )

    [1] => Array (
        [name] => datset2
        [path] => /var/lib/bliTool/ds2
        [type] => xml
    )

    [2] => Array (
        [name] => datset3
        [path] => /home/igor/test/ds3
        [type] => cvs
    )
)

Q1 Is such a data structure possible within bash? Are there other recommendations? Remember, this should be in a config file...

Q2: I am thinking about one configuration file per 'set' like

/etc/myApp/
/etc/myApp/myApp.conf
/etc/myApp/datasets.d/
/etc/myApp/datasets.d/ds1.conf
/etc/myApp/datasets.d/ds2.conf
/etc/myApp/datasets.d/dsN.conf

and each /etc/myApp/datasets.d/dsN.conf file would look like

name=The DS name
path=/the/path/to/the/ds/files
type=thetype

What do you recommend? Is there a way to do everything in one file?

Q3: I want to support multiple path values per set. I could support something like

path="/first/path /second/path"

But I think I'll get trouble with spaces, so I should introduce a delimeter like

path="/first/path:/second/path"

to split the string.

Or is there a better way?

bash configuration-files
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