out=out.txt
for f in `cat list.txt | head -1`; do
	
	echo $f >> $out
	echo "sleep 5" >> $out
done

 awk '{if($1=="wget")print $0"\nsleept 5"}' list.txt > out.txt

Quote:

Originally Posted by soemac Any smart way to do this preferably using less code.

Code:

IFS= read -r f < list.txt
printf "%s\n" "$f" > "$out"

head -1 list.txt >>$out   # yes, the cat is completely meaningless
echo sleep 5 >>$out

Quote:

Originally Posted by era Just to deviate as little as possible from your original, Code: head -1 list.txt >>$out # yes, the cat is completely meaningless

And head is an unnecessary external command. It is much faster to use read to get the first line from a file.

echo sleep 5 >>$out

string_with_spaces="`head -1 list.txt`"

The quotes are unnecessary.

It is not a string with spaces that is being assigned to the variable, it is the output of command substitution, which is not subject to word splitting by the shell.