shell variable interpolation?

[Steven Hanley]

All

Okay so I am wondering if there is a better way to interpolate variables
within a string in shell than I have worked out here.
(seeing how we have some sick disturbed individuals who do things with sh
that it was probably never meant to do (hi Michael) I thought I might ask.

I have 

====
#! /bin/sh

multi_apply () {
   local string=$1
   local list=$2
   for item in $list ; do 
      line=`eval echo "$string"`      echo $line
   done
}

a1="one long \$item argument"
a2="and another one"

multi_apply "$a1" "$a2"
====

which when I run it outputs

one long and argument
one long another argument
one long one argument

the idea is to pass in and a string in which the items should be inserted.
This seems to work fine, I wonder however if there is a better/more
efficient/faster than this.

Ideas/Suggestions?

	See You
	    Steve

-- 
sjh at wibble.net http://wibble.net/~sjh
You are subtle as a window pane standing in my view
but I will wait for it to rain so that I can see you
   Anticipate - Ani