Is it possible to change the column separator for the read statement?

[Jack C. Mahaffey]

I got a script that reads a text file that has the columns separated by colons (:). Is it possible to change the default separator for the read command.

My read statement looks like the following:

while read -r col1 col2 col3 col4 col5
do
...
done < ${vgconfigfile}


I know I can do it in perl. Can I do it with the shell?

jack...

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

save=${IFS}
IFS=:
read -r col1 col2 ...

IFS=${save}

IFS is the boy you want to change. Man sh_posix for details and look for Internal Field Separator

[S.K. Chan]

Try this in your script. Use the IFS statement to define your field separator.
#!/usr/bin/sh
IFS=:
...
while read -r col1 col2 col3 col4 col5
do
...
....

[Jordan Bean]

Or, to alter the IFS just for the read statement and not the rest of the script, do it this way:

#!/usr/bin/sh
while IFS=: read -r col1 col2 ...
do
...
done < ${vgconfigfile}

[Jack C. Mahaffey]

Thanks all..

Jordan, thanks for the inline example.

jack...