Sourcing scripts with a for loop for different variables

Question

I have several shell scripts that I summarised within a global script. I am using some variables that are the same across all scripts, and I wrote a separate script for this, which I am sourcing in each sub-script. This is what my variables script looks like:

variables.sh
NUMBER="6"
TYPE="${NUMBER}_xyz"
STATE="S05"
DIR="path/file_${NUMBER}_blabla"
FILE="file.txt"

My global script, global.sh, looks like this:

source variables.sh
bash script1.sh
bash script2.sh
...

Now, I need to change the NUMBER variable in my variables script, run the global script, change the number, run the global script again etc. for each number from 6-15. At the moment I am doing this manually every time the global script has finished, but it's taking up a lot of time.

Answer 1

First you have to adapt variables.sh so that NUMBER is not set unconditionally any more:

NUMBER=${NUMBER:-6}

That allows you to pass the value from the calling process:

for((NUMBER=6;NUMBER<16;NUMBER++)); do
  source variables.sh
  bash script1.sh
  bash script2.sh
done

General remark: I am surprised that this works without export statements or set -a.