Issue in reading file line by line

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a file something like:

a

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp

b c

&nbsp&nbsp

d
sdfsdf

&nbsp&nbsp

f f

&nbsp

f
f

&nbsp

fffff
dfdf

Now when i read it as

while read line
do
echo $line
done< file

I get the o/p as

a b c d
sdfsdf f f f
f fffff
dfdf

i.e the spaces are trimmed. I want to retain the spaces as well.
Would appreciate help. want to avoid awk.

Thanks

2

What spaces? I don't see any spaces in your example :rolleyes:

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3

The original file is

a<space><space><space>b<space> c<space><space> d
sdfsdf f<space><space> f f
f<space><space><space> fffff
dfdf

---------- Post updated at 09:40 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:07 PM ----------

Original file

a	b    c d
sdfsdf	f   f	f
f     ffff
dfdf
4 
# while read line;do echo "$line";done < file
a       b    c d
sdfsdf  f   f   f
f     ffff
dfdf

Double quotes :rolleyes:

PS: Don't forget to edit your first post and add [CODE] tags for data sample and script code.

5

echo will echo all arguments using argument delimeter and newline.

echo $line

  • shell look the line, if there is variable =>
echo a       b     c d
  • between a, b, c and d has only whitespaces=argument delimeter, not space.
  • then shell call echo using argument a, b, c, d => output is:
    a b c d

echo "$line"

  • shell look the line, is there variable =>
echo "a       b     c d"
  • echo get only one argument
while read line
do

        echo "$line"
        # is not same as
        echo $line
done < file
6

Thanks everyone...It works that way...