How to read unknown multiple amount of variables and then display them?

Question

I'm trying to code something that looks like that:

#!/bin/bash
echo "type your separated words"
read *all variables*
echo *all variables*

Is that possible?

iruvar · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-21 00:36:05Z

5

You could store them into an array using read

read -p $'type your separated words:\n' -a arr
printf "%s\n" "${arr[@]}"

answered Apr 21, 2014 at 0:36

iruvar

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4 Comments

Array is the only way to store multiple unknown vars?

@ItaiGanot, for an unknown number of vars, this is the only solution I am aware of

Can you kindly explain what is "%s\n" "${arr[@]}" ?

@ItaiGanot %s format the array content as a string and ${arr[@]} corresponds to all of the array elements.

Idriss Neumann · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-21 11:40:01Z

2

Another solution :

$ read
str1 str2 str3
$ set -- $REPLY
$ echo "$1"
str1
$ echo "$2"
str2
$ echo "$@"
str1 str2 str3

But I prefer the 1_CR solution.

answered Apr 21, 2014 at 11:40

Idriss Neumann

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+1 This will work in POSIX shells without array support, as well.