Linux and Unix Shell Programming

5.2. read

Use read to take information from the keyboard or from a line of text from a file and assign it to a variable. If you specify only one variable then the read will assign all input to that variable until it sees an end-of-file marker or the shell sees a carriage return.

The general format is:

read variable1 variable2... 

One variable has been specified, which holds all text until the return key has been hit:

						
$ read name 
Hello I am superman 
$ echo $name 
Hello I am superman
					

Here, we assign two variables to hold a first and a second name. The shell will use the space bar as the separator for each variable.

						
$ read name surname 
John Doe 
$ echo $name $surname 
John Doe
					

If you type in too many fields of text, the shell will assign all ...