Environment variable in variable

Question

I have an environment variable called $TESTthat refers to a directory in my bash script I have a variable with a name $VARTESTthat$TEST/dir/file

now I want the grep file specified $VARTEST, so I'm trying to do:
grep somestring $VARTESTbut it does not translate the $TESTdirectory into it

I tried different combinations {}, ""and ''but without success

Answer 1

I think you want

eval grep somestring "$VARTEST"

or even

VARTEST_EVALUATED=$(eval echo $VARTEST)
grep "$SOMESTRING" "$VARTEST_EVALUATED"

but remember (as others have already said): If possible, use

VARTEST="$TEST/foo/bar"

instead

VARTEST='$TEST/foo/bar'

use the second one only if you really need a lazy rating ...

, , $VARTEST .

Answer 2

-? . . :

#!/bin/sh

TEST="/etc"
VARTEST="$TEST/passwd"
grep "$LOGNAME" "$VARTEST"