How to slice an array in Bash

See the Parameter Expansion section in the Bash man page. A[@] returns the contents of the array, :1:2 takes a slice of length 2, starting at index 1.

A=( foo bar "a  b c" 42 )
B=("${A[@]:1:2}")
C=("${A[@]:1}")       # slice to the end of the array
echo "${B[@]}"        # bar a  b c
echo "${B[1]}"        # a  b c
echo "${C[@]}"        # bar a  b c 42
echo "${C[@]: -2:2}"  # a  b c 42 # The space before the - is necesssary

Note that the fact that a b c is one array element (and that it contains an extra space) is preserved.

There is also a convenient shortcut to get all elements of the array starting with specified index. For example "${A[@]:1}" would be the "tail" of the array, that is the array without its first element.

version=4.7.1
A=( ${version//\./ } )
echo "${A[@]}"    # 4 7 1
B=( "${A[@]:1}" )
echo "${B[@]}"    # 7 1