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up vote 1 down vote favorite

I want to dynamically create a sequence of strings by manipulate an array of elements and create some arithmetic procedure.

for name in FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH; do
    $name = $(( $6 + 1 ))
    $name = "${$name}q;d"
    echo "${$name}"; printf "\n"
done

The desire outcome would be the below for $6 equals 0.

1q;d
2q;d
3q;d
4q;d
5q;d

But I get this error

reel_first_part.sh: line 18: FIRST: command not found
reel_first_part.sh: line 19: ${$name}q;d: bad substitution
reel_first_part.sh: line 18: FIRST: command not found
reel_first_part.sh: line 19: ${$name}q;d: bad substitution
reel_first_part.sh: line 18: FIRST: command not found
reel_first_part.sh: line 19: ${$name}q;d: bad substitution

I guess it's something simple. It used to work when I did something like 

FIRST=$(( $6 + 1 ))
FIRST="${FIRST}q;d"
share|improve this question
1  
Can you explain it little better. Don't really understand what are you trying to do. –  neuron Aug 11 at 11:31
    
What is ` $name = $(( $6 + 1 ))` supposed to do? –  PSkocik Aug 11 at 11:48
    
@PSkocik I was hoping to do FIRST=$(( $6 + 1 )) –  giannis christofakis Aug 11 at 11:58

4 Answers 4

up vote 0 down vote 
index=0;                                                                                                                                                                                                           
for name in FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH; do
    name=$(($index + 1))
    echo "${name}q;d"
    index=$((index+1))
done

Is that what you are trying?

share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

First of all there can not be any space around = in variable declaration in bash.

To get what you want you can use eval.

For example a sample script like yours :

#!/bin/bash
i=0
for name in FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH; do
    eval "$name"="'$(( $i + 1 ))q;d'"
    printf '%s\n' "${!name}"
    i=$(( $i + 1 ))
done

Prints :

1q;d
2q;d
3q;d
4q;d
5q;d

Use eval cautiously, some people call it evil for some valid reason.

declare would work too :

#!/bin/bash
i=0
for name in FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH; do
    declare "$name"="$(( $i + 1 ))q;d"
    printf '%s\n' "${!name}"
    i=$(( $i + 1 ))
done

also prints :

1q;d
2q;d
3q;d
4q;d
5q;d
share|improve this answer
    
What is the ! exclamation mark printf '%s\n' "${!name}" for? –  giannis christofakis Aug 11 at 12:24
1  
Its called indirect expansion of bash parameter expansion..read this –  heemayl Aug 11 at 12:27
1  
Bash also has a nicer alternative to declare / eval: printf -v varname '%fmt' args. Some bash-completion internal functions use this for call-by-reference. (pass the name of a variable to store into). –  Peter Cordes Aug 11 at 18:25
up vote 1 down vote

What I get from your code and your desired output (correct me if I'm wrong):
There is no use of the "FIRST"/"SECOND"/... variable names, you just need a loop with an index...

This will do the job:

for i in {1..5} ; do echo $i"q;d" ; done

share|improve this answer
    
Yes, you are right, except additionally I want to do an arithmetic function with a variable. –  giannis christofakis Aug 11 at 11:55
    
Can you give an example of this arithmetic function? Do you need the variable name (like "THIRD") for it or just the index value? –  csny Aug 11 at 12:01
    
SUM=$(($6 + $i)); echo $SUM"q;d", I see what I was doing wrong. –  giannis christofakis Aug 11 at 12:09
up vote 0 down vote

If you want to reference a bash variable while having the name stored in another variable you can do it as follows:

$ var1=hello
$ var2=var1
$ echo ${!var2}
hello

You store the name of the variable you want to access in, say, var2 in this case. Then you access it with ${!<varable name>} where <variable name> is a variable holding the name of the variable you want to access.

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