Variable substitution by name template in bash

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For instance, there are 3 environments potentially can be used for the automated tests. And, tests are run with a script like ./run-my-tests.bash qa1. The word qa1 is an identifier of an environment (there are also two other). Based on the environment identifier, the script has to read 2 variables to get the required configuration. How to do that?

Let’s define the environments within the script:

qa1_url="http://qa1.example.com"
qa1_port="8080"

qa2_url="http://qa2.example4.com"
qa2_port="8081"

qa3_url="http://qa3.example2.com"
qa3_port="80"

Next step is to evaluate environment settings based on given script’s argument.

if [ "$1" == "qa1" ]; then
    echo "run tests on the $qa1_url:$qa1_port"
fi
if [ "$1" == "qa2" ]; then
    echo "run tests on the $qa2_url:$qa2_port"
fi
if [ "$1" == "qa3" ]; then
    echo "run tests on the $qa3_url:$qa3_port"
fi

If the script will be run with ./run-my-tests.bash qa2, then qa2 settings have to be used. Great! It works! But, we have separate if for each environment. How can we avoid that?

Variable substitution by name template

There is a magic construction which allows evaluation of bash variable by a name template:

eval "echo -n \$${ENVIRONMENT}_url"
  1. eval ..." allows executing a command in the shell
  2. "..." encloses desired variable (${ENVIRONMENT})
  3. echo -n ... outputs the arguments without the trailing newline
  4. \$... is used to tell to eval to get the variable (ENVIRONMENT=qa1 => $qa1_url)
  5. ${ENVIRONMENT}_url generates variable with a suffix (_url) in the name

So, if ENVIRONMENT=qa2, then in the process of execution the construction will be

  1. updated to eval "echo -n $qa2_url"
  2. evaluated to http://qa2.example4.com

Conclusion

Using variable substitution by name template reduces code duplication. The final version of the script you could find below.

run-my-tests.bash.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# read the user input
ENVIRONMENT=${1?"Please specify on of the environments: 'qa1' or 'qa2' or 'qa3'"}

# define a list of configurations per environment
qa1_url="http://qa1.example.com"
qa1_port="8080"

qa2_url="http://qa2.example4.com"
qa2_port="8081"

qa3_url="http://qa3.example2.com"
qa3_port="80"

URL=$(eval "echo -n \$${ENVIRONMENT}_url")
PORT=$(eval "echo -n \$${ENVIRONMENT}_port")

echo "run tests on the $URL:$PORT"

Sample outputs:

$ ./run-my-tests.bash
./run-my-tests.bash: line 4: 1: Please specify one of the environments: 'qa1' or 'qa2' or 'qa3'
$ ./run-my-tests.bash qa1
run tests on the http://qa1.example.com:8080
$ ./run-my-tests.bash qa2
run tests on the http://qa2.example4.com:8081
$ ./run-my-tests.bash qa3
run tests on the http://qa3.example2.com:80

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