bash read files to variable question
 

found this in reading and intend to try it as a way of sending text
file info to a script as variables:

the immediate question i have is in regard to formatting the layout
of how this command is written.

the text file in question has many lines, each of which i'd like to
send to its own variable. i already have a version of this script
written for windows powershell. the way that script is layed out i
have each named variable on its own line in the script. in the above
example they are all layed out one after the other in a line.

can i just do something like this?

if there were 50 or 60 more variables it would make reading the
code easier.

do i need to put something in after each variable (like a ; or /) to
tell the script that we're continuing on another line?

thanks,
BabaG

Usually a \ is used to continue to next line.

you can assign an array while doing the read
then to call the array elements:
however, from the example, an easier method is to use awk,

Also you don't need to escape the "" in $fname and the IFS does not have to be part of the read line:

thanks for the info all.

my source file has spaces in the lines. if i want to change the
IFS from : to a new line, how do i do this? in other words, i
want each line of my source file to be read as a variable. some
of these lines have spaces in them. how do i use IFS to declare
each new line as a seperator without having it get confused by
spaces in the lines?

thanks again,
BabaG

ok, found the new line thing on IFS but still having problems.

if i echo the first variable, headerA, it prints the entire
file contents to screen.

if i echo anything in addition to the first variable, headerA,
it prints an empty line between each line of the file's
contents.

thanks again,
BabaG

here's what i have:

For newline do IFS=$'\n' and save some typing. Might affect script output too.

do like i do
why not have the variables in the format:

x="y"
name="bert smith"
id=1234323


then you can just source the files in like so:

. var_file

or if you use a decent shell (ksh) you can do this:

in bash the $x is local to the while loop (rubbish)

job done easy peasy,
KIS