How to expand variables with spaces in bash

I’d like to call kubectl run that allows to specify environment values with the syntax: --env=nameOfVar=valueOfVar.

I have this construct:

env=()
for v in var1 var2 var2; do
  env+="--env=$v=${!v}"
done
kubectl run mycontainer "${env[@]}"

In this way, I can pass the value of existing variables to kubectl.

It works ok, except when the value of a var contains spaces.

How can I delimiter arguments correctly to kubectl?

I’ve tried other variations like:

env=
for v in var1 var2 var2; do
  env="$env --env=$v=${!v}"
done
kubectl run mycontainer "$env"

Suposing var1 has the value value 1 and so on, I’d like this result:

kubectl run mycontainer "--env=var1=value 1" "--env=var2=value 2" "--env=var3=value 3"

instead of this:

kubectl run mycontainer --env=var1=value 1 --env=var2=value 2 --env=var3=value 3

>Solution :

Use an array instead.

env=()
for v in var1 var2 var2; do
  env+=("--env=$v=${!v}")
done
kubectl run mycontainer "${env[@]}"