I have the following code
let a=1
let b=a
echo $b
When i echo b, i want it to refer it's value (which is 'a'), and display the value of a( which is '1')
Can this be achieved?
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possible duplicate of Indirect variable assignment in bashl0b0– l0b02012-04-26 13:52:24 +00:00Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 13:52
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3 Answers
First, I would argue you don't really want to do this. But instead of convincing you, here's how to do it:
$ let a=1
$ b=a
$ echo $b
a
$ eval "echo \$$b"
1
note that you can't use "let" for the second assignment since you want to access the right-hand-side as a string later.
Comments
I think you want let b=$a
1 Comment
Muthukumar
Thanks for your reply Sharet. In my case that is not the scenario. I just have a string, which may be 'a1', 'a2' or 'a3'. I get this particular string from sql server. I have predefined variables a1, a2 and a3. I just have to access the corresponding variable for the string.
If your shell is bash, then what you wrote actually sets b to "1" (not "a") because the $ is optional in arithmetic expressions (which you force with the use of let).
Without using let, this is the syntax you're looking for (assuming bash): a=1; b=a; echo $b ${!b} which outputs a 1
