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Assume two files: file1 and file2. file1 is a short Bash script, that references file2 in order to obtain a text string. The text string includes a variable name ($VAR1), but the variable itself is assigned a value in file1.

$ cat file1
#!/bin/bash
VAR1="World"
CMDS=$(cat file2)
echo "$CMDS"

$ cat file2
Hello $VAR1 !

Under the above setup, the variable name is not recognized correctly during the execution of file1.

$ bash file1 
Hello $VAR1 !

What do I need to do so that the variable name is recognized correctly during the execution of file1?

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  • 2
    Why do you want to do this? Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 11:02
  • @123 Apparently, he wants to use bash as a templating system. Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 11:23
  • @chepner Very odd way to approach templating. Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 11:29

1 Answer 1

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As you do not execute file2, just cat its content, the variable in file2 only serves as a placeholder. You could pipe the output from cat to sed, like so:

CMDS=$(cat file2|sed -e "s/\$VAR1/$VAR1/")
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sed knows how to read file2. The cat is useless.

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