[oclug] How do I input in a (bash) shell script

[Chris Hulan]

Joe Burpee wrote:
> 
> Josh Diakun wrote:
> > Let me get this straight you want to enter a string like... "hey does this
> > work" ...into a variable...what I posted should do so.

Sorry Josh, I didn't look at your solution cloesly enough...

> 
> OK, but it don't think it will preserve leading or trailing whitespace.
> If that is a concern, it is safer to use `read' with no arguments.  The
> complete input line then should be in "$REPLY":
>   read
>   foo="$REPLY"
>   echo "Foo text: $foo."
> 
> Alternatively, you might fiddle (carefully) with $IFS; e.g. `IFS=' will
> remove any special treatment of whitespace.  Another solution would be
> to avoid shell conventions entirely and read thru an external program
> like:
>   foo=`head -1`
8<snip>8
> Joe

I'll take a look at read. anf IFS.

Thanks for the help

Chris