UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

can i avoid creating any external files? i want to be able to do this in the script.

No, source requires a filename.

Please note, from a security perspective, solutions above that set variables on the basis of the content of the input file, should be evaluated. Theoretically, if someone else controls the contents of the input_file, they can control what shell variables are being used inside the script and potentially mess with the operation of the script.

If the order of the son key/values is always fixed, then an approach for example like this would give more control in that situation:

Code:

for key in ip hostname city region country loc org postal
do
  while IFS=\" read _ readkey _ val _ 
  do 
    case $readkey in
      ("") 
        continue ;;
      ($key)
        read "$key" <<< "$val" 
        continue 2 ;;
      (*)
        echo "Error: Expected key \"$key\" does not equal key \"$readkey\" read from input file"
        exit 1 ;;
    esac
  done
done <<< "${IpInfo}"

There are other ways of doing it if the order is not fixed.