Bash read

Internal

• bash

Overview

read [-p prompt] name name2 ...

Read a line from the stdin or from the file descriptor specified with -u, and assign the first word to the variable associated with the first name, the second to the variable associated with the second name, and so on, with the leftover words and their intervening separators assigned to the variable associated with the last name. If there are fewer words than variable names, the variables associated with the remaining names are assigned empty values.

The words are split using the IFS characters. The backslash character (\) may be used to remove any special meaning for the next character read and for line continuation.

If -p prompt option is used, read displays the specified prompt on standard error, without a trailing new-line, before attempting to read any input. The prompt is displayed only if input is coming from a terminal.

Fixed Number of Characters

-n nchars

If -n option is used read returns after reading nchars characters rather than waiting for a complete line of input.

Array Assignment

-a aname

If -a option is used, he words are assigned to sequential indices of the array variable aname, starting at 0. aname is unset before any new values are assigned. Other name arguments are ignored.

Silent Mode

-s

If input is coming from a terminal, characters are not echoed.