import variables into bash script from a config file

Question

I would like to import variables like username, password, host name from a config.cfg file so that I can use them inside the bash script file script.sh

user = ""
password = ""
host = ""

how can I do that, so that in the script.sh file I can use the credentials that are set in the config.cfg file to excute the following in the script:

mysqldump --user="$user" --password="$password" --host="$host" $db $tabl > "./backups/$db/$db-$tabl-$time"

Renaud Pacalet · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-07 12:25:46Z

6

Remove the spaces around the = signs in your config file, source it from your script, and use the so defined shell variables:

source config.cfg
echo "$user"

edited Aug 7, 2017 at 12:25

answered Aug 7, 2017 at 12:12

Renaud Pacalet

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Comments

Arkadiusz Drabczyk · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-07 12:11:27Z

3

You have to source it. In bash you can do that using source or ., they are equivalents. For example:

source config.cfg

or

. config.cfg

EDIT:

As correctly noted in the other answer you need to remove spaces around = for your config.cfg to work in bash.

answered Aug 7, 2017 at 12:11

Arkadiusz Drabczyk

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1 Comment

JustinP Over a year ago

just reiterating. the command need to be bash <scriptname.sh>, not sh <scriptname.sh> .. thank you for pointing this out!

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