Hi,

I use AIX (ksh) and Linux (bash) servers. I'm trying to do scripts to will run in both ksh and bash, and most of the time it works. But this time I don't get it in bash (I'm more familar in ksh).

The goal of my script if to read a "config file" (like "ini" file), and make various report. I really simplified my script and reproduce the problem. It seems that variable inside "while loop" are lost in bash, but not in ksh?

Here's the script:

#!/bin/bash

function read_configfile
{
typeset configfile="$1"
typeset Hostname="$2"

grep '=' $configfile | sed "s/'//g" | while read ligne; do
variable="$(echo "$ligne" | awk -F= '{print $1}')"
value="$(echo "$ligne" awk -F= '{print $2}')"
eval "$variable='$value'"
done

echo "Affectation=$Affectation"
}

read_configfile bogus.in $(hostname)


And the bogus.in file:

Affectation=Yes life is good

When run, the output is

Affectation=

So... First of all I want to understand WHY the behavior is different. Is it because the way the "pipe" are processed?

Second, I found a way to bypass this. I just put every "variable=value" in a file (echo equation >>file), and outside the loop I'm doing an eval, and it works. But I would prefer NOT to use temporary file, so if you have any suggestions...

Thanks.

See: Help in dealing with arra

Thanks a lot. I was afraid of that. I should have tested it more before posting. Grrrrrrrrr... I don't like this behavior of bash!

Thx.