Very Computer

I am writing a sh shell script and I need to read a file line-by-line into
a variable without changing the lines. I am using a While loop as shown below
but it is stripping off leading spaces and multiple spaces in the line it is
reading in! Does anyone know a way to read in a file line-byline without
modifying the line?

Script currently being used:

while read j
do

         tc_title=$j  # store the TC title line in variable tc_title
         echo "$tc_title" >> $temp_dir/temp_9

done < $tc_files_dir/$i

Thanks for any help.

Quote:>I am writing a sh shell script and I need to read a file line-by-line into
>a variable without changing the lines. I am using a While loop as shown below
>Script currently being used:

>while read j
>do
>         tc_title=$j  # store the TC title line in variable tc_title

         tc_title="$j"  # store the TC title line in variable tc_title

Quote:>         echo "$tc_title" >> $temp_dir/temp_9

>done < $tc_files_dir/$i

: I am writing a sh shell script and I need to read a file line-by-line into
: a variable without changing the lines. I am using a While loop as shown below
: but it is stripping off leading spaces and multiple spaces in the line it is
: reading in! Does anyone know a way to read in a file line-byline without
: modifying the line?

The read command uses the characters stored in the IFS variable to parse its
input.  IFS usually contains space, tab, and newline, which causes the read
command to strip whitespace from its input.  You can set the IFS variable to
empty to prevent this from happening; however, the IFS variable is used for
many other things as well, so it is best to restore its normal value where
possible.  For example:

OLDIFS=IFS
IFS=
while read LINE
do
        IFS=$OLDIFS

        echo "$LINE"

        IFS=
done
IFS=$OLDIFS

Bruce Blinn

|> I am writing a sh shell script and I need to read a file line-by-line into
|> a variable without changing the lines. I am using a While loop as shown below
|> but it is stripping off leading spaces and multiple spaces in the line it is
|> reading in! Does anyone know a way to read in a file line-byline without
|> modifying the line?
|>
|> Script currently being used:
|>
|> while read j
|> do
|>
|>          tc_title=$j  # store the TC title line in variable tc_title
|>          echo "$tc_title" >> $temp_dir/temp_9
|>
|> done < $tc_files_dir/$i
|>
|>
|>
|> Thanks for any help.
|>

Try the following:

#--set counter for sed
i=1

while true
do
        VAR=`sed -n ''$i'p' $FILENAME`
        if [ "$VAR" = "" ]  #---break if line has no chars or EOF
        then
                break
        else
                #---do file processing here
        #---quotes ensure that line echoes with initial spaces
        echo "$VAR"  

        #---don't forget to increment the counter
        i=`expr $i + 1`
        fi
done

This will echo one line of FILENAME at a time, progressing top to bottom.
Hope this helps.

Regards,
Ashvin.

==========================================================================

while read j
do
    blah "$j" blah
done < filename

... does preserve embedded tabbing/spacing (at least it does on my system) however
leading tabbing/spacing is dropped

To preserve ALL tabbing/spacing, try the following:
while j=`line`
do
    blah "$j" blah
done < filename
--
Brian Duane - NCR Corporation
(Formerly AT&T GIS, formerly NCR)

That's not portable.  Not all echos treat \ that way.  For example, on
this system:

$ echo \\007
\007

The portable way to do it is

IFS=^G

using a literal ^G, of course.  (I would include one, but inews doesn't
like it.)

-zefram