Shell script variable reflection [duplicate]

Question

I am writing a shell script (#!/bin/sh) which has a variable VAR which contains the name of another variable FOO, which in turn is set to BAR.

FOO=BAR
VAR=FOO

I want to get the value of the variable named in VAR, so something like:

echo "${$VAR}"

But that does not seem to work. Suggestions?

Answer 1

In Bash:

echo "${!VAR}"

Without Bash (though it works in Bash too):

eval echo "\${$VAR}"

Beware: eval is a very general mechanism that can run you into problems very easily. It works fine here, but be cautious about using it more generally.