Getting variable values from variable names listed in array in Bash

Question

I'm trying to print values of multiple variables that are listed in a Bash array as evident in the minimal code example below.

#!/bin/bash
VAR1="/path/to/source/root"
VAR2="/path/to/target/root"
VAR3="50"

VARS=("VAR1" "VAR2" "VAR3")
for var in ${VARS[*]}; do
    echo "value of $var is ${$var}"
done

This gives me an error

line 8: value of $var is ${$var}: bad substitution

I want the following output:

value of VAR1 is /path/to/source/root
value of VAR2 is /path/to/target/root
value of VAR3 is 50

My search on Google and SO was not very fruitful. Because of the indirection (i.e., var iterates over an array containing names of variables for which I want the values), I'm not able to precisely word my search. But any help is appreciated.

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-27 17:52:06Z

2

Use indirect reference as:

#!/bin/bash
VAR1="/path/to/source/root"
VAR2="/path/to/target/root"
VAR3="50"

VARS=("VAR1" "VAR2" "VAR3")
for var in ${VARS[*]}; do
    echo "value of $var is ${!var}"
done

Output:

value of VAR1 is /path/to/source/root
value of VAR2 is /path/to/target/root
value of VAR3 is 50

answered Mar 27, 2015 at 17:52

anubhava

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