This is the type of thing that's really handy when you need it but you may not need it too often.

Nick Janetakis's blog provides insights into web development, Docker, and technology tutorials. Readers can find articles covering topics such as containerization, cloud computing, and serverless architectures. Additionally, they can learn about web development frameworks, deployment strategies, and best practices for building scalable applications.

Nick Janetakis

Bash 4.3+ supports namerefs via `local -n`, which lets functions mutate variables passed by name — similar to pointer behavior in other languages. This avoids globals and subshell workarounds (like `VAR=$(func)`), and is especially useful for returning or modifying arrays. A real-world example from a dotfiles install script shows a `_skip_packages` function that filters package arrays in-place using namerefs, keeping the rest of the script clean and unaware of skip logic. Key gotcha: avoid naming the local nameref variable the same as the passed-in variable to prevent circular reference warnings.

Bash Nameref: Mutate Function Arguments (Pointer-Like Behavior) — Nick Janetakis