Question

I have the file “Testfile”, whit a register in every line, each register having some fields:

foo1=32=test01=30/03/2012 10:03 p.m
foo2=54=test02=30/03/2012 10:05 p.m
foo3=912=test03=30/03/2012 10:08 p.m

(“=” is the field delimiter)

I read the first field for every register and store them in an array, and the same for the second field of every register:

NAMES=(`cut -f1 -d'=' Testfile`)
VALUES=(`cut -f2 -d'=' Testfile`)

That gives me two arrays like these: (foo1 foo2 foo3) and (32 54 912)

Is it possible to dynamically create variables named foo1 foo2 and foo3, and assign them their respective values?

I could do:

foo1 = ${VALUES[0]}
foo2 = ${VALUES[1]}
foo3 = ${VALUES[2]}

But I want to get the names of the variables dynamically, regarding the names that I’ve got from the file.

Answer 1

cat Testfile 
foo1=35
foo2=54
foo3=912

for v in $(cat Testfile); do declare "$v"; done

echo $foo1 
35

echo $foo2 
54

that will work if lines in file looks exact like this:

var=val

and here is a version that works with spaces:

cat Testfile
foo1 = 35
foo2 = 54
foo3 = 912

while read line; do
    if [ -z "$line" ]; then continue; fi
    var=$(echo $line | cut -d'=' -f1)
    val=$(echo $line | cut -d'=' -f2)
    declare "$(echo $var)=$(echo $val)"
done < Testfile

echo $foo1 
35