cd to variable not working in shell script

Question

I have following variables

$a=/opt
$b=var
$c=usr
$path=/$a/$b/$c/man

when I do cd $path it says no such file or directory.

but this path actually exist /opt/var/usr/man .. any suggestion ?

Answer 1

The problem is a bad syntax in variable assignments.

$a=/opt
$b=var
$c=usr
$path=/$a/$b/$c/man

.. will never work since variable assignments must not be preceded by $.

You should instead do it as follows:

a=opt
b=var
c=usr
dir=/$a/$b/$c/man
cd $dir

Note that I changed the final variable name as it is a bad idea to use two variables with the same name but in a different case as it can be confusing. (PATH being a very important environment variable)

Answer 2

If you try this echo $a$b$c you will get this

[root@centseven ~]# echo $a$b$c
/optvarusr

So this is not a a execute.

Your last variable should be path=/$a$b$c/man

Change your variable to the below

$a=/opt
$b=/var
$c=/usr

Then try echo $path it works for me

[root@centseven ~]# echo $path
/opt/var/usr/man