removing readonly behaviour from variable

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I am new to shell programming. I just wanted to know if I set a variable to readonly. How do I revert it back to normal.

name="some_name"
readonly name

Now I want to make name variable back to it normal, on which I can perform write operation too.

Thanks

2

You cannot mark it un-readonly, you are stuck with it until the process that created it is gone. readonly is used on variables like TMOUT, which are set in /etc/profile and meant to have "forever" duration for any user that logs in.

This is what POSIX says about readonly:

readonly

3

For scripting purposes you would have to seed a variable with a new name and continue the script with the new name.

new_var="${name}"

Obviously if a special variable like $PATH was read-only, the new variable would not inherit the special meaning.

4

Thanks for your replies!