Dynamic Variable in KornShell Script

Question

This KornShell Script (ksh):

envir=Dev
eval "${envir}foo=bar"
echo "$Devfoo"

Output:

bar

But I will not know what value is assigned to envir variable. So I want to do something like this where the output is the same as above:

envir=Dev
eval "${envir}foo=bar"
echo "${${envir}foo}"

Output:

${${envir}foo}: bad substitution

--version: 0403-010 A specified flag is not valid for this command. The what $(which ksh) command has a lot of output. Not sure what to look for. — javaPlease42
– javaPlease42, Commented Jul 28, 2015 at 17:58

glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-28 17:02:08Z

2

For ksh93, you have (at least) a couple of choices

associative arrays

envir=Dev
foo["$envir"]=bar
echo "${foo["$envir"]}"

namerefs

nameref var=${envir}foo
var=bar
echo "$var"

For ksh88, you may be stuck with eval:

envir=Dev
name="${envir}foo"
eval "$name=bar"
eval "echo \$$name"

answered Jul 28, 2015 at 17:02

glenn jackman

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