Name (and set) variables in current shell, based on line input data - shell

Question

I have a SQL*Plus output written into a text file in the following format:
3459906| |2|X1|WAS1| Output1
334596| |2|X1|WAS2| Output1
3495792| |1|X1|WAS1| Output1
687954| |1|X1|WAS2| Output1
I need a shell script to fetch the counts which were at the beginning based on the text after the counts.
For example, If the Text is like |2|X1|WAS1| , then 3459906 should be passed on to a variable x1was12 and if the text is like |2|X1|WAS2| , then 334596 should be passed on to a variable x1was22.
I tried writing a for loop and if condition to pass on the counts, but was unsuccessful:
export filename1='file1.dat'
while read -r line ; do
if [[ grep -i "*|2|X1|WAS1| Output1*" | wc -l -eq 0 ]] ; then
export xwas12=sed -n ${line}p $filename1 | \
sed 's/[^0-9]*//g' | sed 's/..$//'
elif [[ grep -i "*|2|X1|WAS2| Output1*" | wc -l -eq 0 ]] ; then
export x1was22=sed -n ${line}p $filename1 | \
sed 's/[^0-9]*//g' | sed 's/..$//'
elif [[ grep -i "*|1|X1|WAS1| Output1*" | wc -l -eq 0 ]] ; then
export x1was11=sed -n ${line}p $filename1 | \
sed 's/[^0-9]*//g' | sed 's/..$//'
elif [[ grep -i "*|1|X1|WAS2| Output1*" | wc -l -eq 0 ]]
export x1was21=sed -n ${line}p $filename1 | \
sed 's/[^0-9]*//g' | sed 's/..$//'
fi
done < "$filename1"
echo '$x1was12' > output.txt
echo '$x1was22' >> output.txt
echo '$x1was11' >> output.txt
echo '$x1was21' >> output.txt
What I was trying to do was:
Go to the first line in the file
-> Search for the text and if found then assign the sed output to the variable
Then go to the second line of the file
-> Search for the texts in the if commands and assign the sed output to another variable.
same goes for other

Answer 1

while IFS='|' read -r count _ n x was _; do
# remove spaces from all variables
count=${count// /}; n=${n// /}; x=${x// /}; was=${was// /}
varname="${x}${was}${n}"
printf -v "${varname,,}" %s "$count"
done <<'EOF'
3459906| |2|X1|WAS1| Output1
334596| |2|X1|WAS2| Output1
3495792| |1|X1|WAS1| Output1
687954| |1|X1|WAS2| Output1
EOF
With the above executed:
$ echo "$x1was12"
3459906
Of course, the redirection from a heredoc could be replaced with a redirection from a file as well.
How does this work? Let's break it down:
Every time IFS='|' read -r count _ n x was _ is run, it reads a single line, separating it by |s, putting the first column into count, discarding the second by assigning it to _, reading the third into n, the fourth into x, the fifth into was, and the sixth and all following content into _. This practice is discussed in detail in BashFAQ #1.
count=${count// /} is a parameter expansion which prunes spaces from the variable count, by replacing all such spaces with empty strings. See also BashFAQ #100.
"${varname,,}" is another parameter expansion, this one converting a variable's contents to all-lowercase. (This requires bash 4.0; in prior versions, consider "$(tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' <<<"$varname") as a less-efficient alternative).
printf -v "$varname" %s "value" is a mechanism for doing an indirect assignment to the variable named in the variable varname.

Answer 2

If not for the variable names, the whole thing could be done with two commands:
cut -d '|' -f1 file1.dat | tr -d ' ' > output.txt
The variable names make it more interesting. Two bash methods follow, plus a POSIX method...
The following bash code ought to do what the OP's sample code was
meant to do:
declare $(while IFS='|' read a b c d e f ; do
echo $a 1>&2 ; echo x1${e,,}$c=${a/ /}
done < file1.dat 2> output.txt )
Notes:
The bash shell is needed for ${e,,}, (turns "WAS" into "was"), and $a/ /} , (removes a leading space that might be in
$a), and declare.
The while loop parses file1.dat and outputs a bunch of variable assignments. Without the declare this code:
while IFS='|' read a b c d e f ; do
echo x1${e,,}$c=${a/ /} ;
done < file1.dat
Outputs:
x1was12=3459906
x1was22=334596
x1was11=3495792
x1was21=687954
The while loop outputs to two separate streams: stdout (for the declare), and stderr (using the 1>&2 and 2> redirects for
output.txt).
Using bash associative arrays:
declare -A x1was="( $(while IFS='|' read a b c d e f ; do
echo $a 1>&2 ; echo [${e/WAS/}$c]=${a/ /}
done < file1.dat 2> output.txt ) )"
In which case the variable names require brackets:
echo ${x1was[21]}
687954
POSIX shell code (tested using dash):
eval $(while IFS='|' read a b c d e f ; do
echo $a 1>&2; echo x1$(echo $e | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]')$c=$(echo $a)
done < file1.dat 2> output.txt )
eval should not be used if there's any doubt about what's in file1.dat. The above code assumes the data in file1.dat is
uniformly dependable.