First off, if this:

Code:

filename=abc.scr destn= $DESTN_PATH/test

is what you really have in your script then it will not work because of the superfluous space between "=" and "$". If it was just a copy error consider this point to be moot.

Without regard to this, if i have understood you correctly:

You have a file like this:

Code:

one.file    $DEST/new.filename
other.file   $DEST/other.newname

and you read it something like this:

Code:

DEST=/some/where
SRC=""
TGT=""

while read SRC TGT ; do
     cp $SRC $TGT
done < file

and you expect the "$DEST" to be expanded by the shell? Well, this won't work, because of the evaluation process of the shell. When it evaluates "$TGT" all the variable evaluation is done and to further evaluate the resulting "$DEST/..." would require the variable substitution process to restart. I have described this in detail in this thread.

The solution is the same as in the other thread and for the same reasons: use eval.

Still, this is a unsatisfying solution, because it is inherently problematic. You might want to create a more robust solution like this:

The first non-comment line of your input file shall be of the form "DEST=/some/path". Multiple lines of this form are allowed and change the value of "$DEST" until the next occurrence of such a line. This is parsed by your script and used to set the value of DEST:

Sample of input file:

Code:

# This is a possible input file
DEST=/some/where
first.file first.file.new

# now we change the DEST value
DEST=/else/where
second.file second.file.new
third.file third.file.new

The expected output from such an input would be like this:

Code:

cp first.file /some/where/first.file.new
cp second.file /else/where/second.file.new
cp third.file /else/where/third.file.new

Here is a sketch of such a script (replace "<spc>" and "<tab>" with the respective literal characters):

Code:

#!/bin/ksh

INFILE="$1"
DEST=""
SRC=""
TGT=""

# the sed is only to clean out comments, leading and trailing blanks and empty lines
sed 's/#.*$//
     s/^[<spc><tab>][<spc><tab>]*//
     s/[<spc><tab>][<spc><tab>]*$//
     /^$/d' $INFILE |\
while read SRC TGT ; do
     if [ "${SRC%=*}" = "DEST" ] ; then
          DEST="${SRC#=}"
     else
          if [ -z "$DEST" ] ; then
               print -u2 - "Error in input file, no \"DEST=\" clause."
               exit 2
          fi
          if [ ! -r "$SRC" -o -w "$DEST" ] ; then
               print -u2 - "Error: $SRC not readable or $DEST not writable."
               exit 1
          fi
          print - "cp $SRC $DEST/$TGT"     # remove the print if the result is as expected
     fi
done

exit 0

I hope this helps.

bakunin