How to use one version number variable in many Linux shell scripts

As a brief note to self, I currently have a situation where I have about ten shell scripts, and each script uses the same jar file, but I keep changing the version number of that jar file each time I have a new release of my Static Drupal application. For example, my current jar file has this name:

Static-Drupal-assembly-1.2.jar

So to keep all of those shell scripts using the correct, current version of my jar file, I created a file named VERSION that has this version variable:

version=1.2

Then in my other shell script files, the first thing I do is “source” that file to get the version variable into those other shell scripts. One of the first lines in my ten shell scripts looks like this:

. ./VERSION

By doing this, I now only have to change the version number in that first file, and it’s automatically picked up in all of my other shell scripts.