Thank you for the reply.
The quotation issue is because I copy and pasted, please forgive that issue.
I have a better way to ask my question!
How does the command for know to extract the file named in the variable and not the string itself? I know its doing that, but just curious WHY and HOW
If you just test `cat $file` you indeed get states
so I'm assuming your reference to the "done" tells the command to extract the file if it exists?
The book is Linux Command Line and Scripting Bible by Richard Blum.
Indeed the next section does cover the issue of New Jersey and introduces the while command and the IFS variable but I have not gotten to that section yet! I hate to move forward not understanding this example in detail...