Question

I have following code:

VAR1=""
ANOTHER_VAR="$VAR1/path/to/file"
ANOTHER_VAR_2="$VAR1/path/to/another/file"

...

# getopts which reads params from command line and sets the VAR1

The problem is that setting the VAR1 after ANOTHER_VARs are set makes their paths without the VAR1 part. I can’t move the getopts above those because the script is long and there are many methods which depends on the variables and on other methods. Any ideas how to solve this?

Answer 1

I’d make ANOTHER_VAR and ANOTHER_VAR_2 into functions. The return value would depend on the current value of VAR1.

ANOTHER_VAR () { echo "$VAR1/path/to/file"; }
ANOTHER_VAR_2 () { echo "$VAR1/path/to/another/file"; }

Then, instead of $ANOTHER_VAR, you’d use $(ANOTHER_VAR)