EVALuating variables on bash

January 25, 2007 · Programming

Recently one friend of mine asked me how you can use a dynamically create variable name in shell scripts (bash). I knew that Perl among others is capable for that kind of functionality with the usage of the function eval.

Searched about it a little, i was close but then my friend dimitris revealed the answer to me.

a="a"
b="b"
ab="hello"
eval "echo \$a$b"