Question

I tried to use variable inside an array variable, but its not working as expected.

CODE

    ENV2[0]=567
    ENV1[0]=123
    ENV1[1]=789
    if [ $1 -eq 1 ]
    then
    name=ENV1
    echo "${name[0]}"
    echo "${name[1]}"
    else
    name=ENV1
    echo "${name[1]}"
    fi

Output: ENV1
Instead of “123”, its printing “ENV1” and a blank line in second echo part. Please help to get the correct output and i am a beginner. Thanks

Answer 1

name=ENV1 will not assign the content of the variable ENV1 to variable name, but the actual string ENV1 instead.

• To copy the array ENV1 to name, you could use this:

  name=$ENV1

  This is same as name=${ENV1[0]}. The first element of the array
  variable will be copied, because the index is not specified. So here,
  only the index 0 is considered.

• To assign all values of ENV1 to name, you should use this:

  set -A name "${ENV1[@]}"

  This sets the array variable name to all elements of ENV1.