Shell substitution variable, err in [output]

Question

looking for some help here. I am seeing the below issue

y=1
j$y=`cat /home/devteam/auppu/new_ig_1|head -n $y`
ksh: j1=5555555555555555:  not found

i have no issue when i cat on the file,like below

cat /home/devteam/auppu/new_ig_1|head -n $y
5555555555555555

Answer 1

You might have to do something like

y=1
x=j${y}
x=`cat /home/devteam/auppu/new_ig_1|head -n $y`
echo $x

You would need to create an intermediate variable (x in this case) and then assign to it the results of your cat command

Answer 2

The simplest way to do this is using an indexed array, like so:

y=1
j[$y]=`cat /home/devteam/auppu/new_ig_1|head -n $y`
echo ${j[$y]}

This way you can store multiple invocations of the cat command in your loop into the associative array referenced by the j variable.