read a file line by line in ksh

chella · #1 (**permalink**) 08-29-2008

Hi,

In ksh we use 'while read line' statement to read a file line by line. In my input file I have 5 spaces appended at the end of each line. When I use while read line statement it chops off the spaces at the end of each line

Inp.txt
aaaa<five spaces>
bbbb<five spaces>
cccc<five spaces>

pgm.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
while read line
do
len=`echo "$line" | wc -c`
echo $len
done

my_output
5
5
5

But my expected output should be,
10
10
10

Kindly help me on this.

Thanks in advance,
Chella.

era · #2 (**permalink**) 08-29-2008

You need to manipulate IFS to make spaces significant. Search for OLDIFS to see examples.

palsevlohit_123 · #3 (**permalink**) 08-29-2008

awk '{print $0,length($0)}' FILENAME

Annihilannic · #4 (**permalink**) 08-29-2008

The read command splits the line into fields separated by white space by default. You can change this by redefining the inter-field separator (IFS). Try this:

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
while IFS="" read line
do
len=`echo "$line" | wc -c`
echo $len
done

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