Question

I am learning shell(ksh) scripting. I wanted to know what does ${array[three]} mean in this context.

array[1]="one"
array[2]="two"
array[3]="three"
three=3

print ${array[1]}
print ${array[2]}
print ${array[3]}
print ${array[three]}

The Output:

one
two
three
three

I understand that we just declare a simple array that holds {one,two,three} as it’s values. But i dont understand why print ${array[three]} outputs three. My main double is isnt it should be print ${array[$three]}

Answer 1

You can also write:

print ${array[$three]}

and it will produce the same answer (three). It appears that within the scope of the ${...}, the Korn shell automatically assumes that any word that could be a variable name is and implicitly applies the $ to it.