Shell Script to Read File

Brief: This example will help you to read a file in a bash script. This tutorial contains two methods to read a file line by line using a shell script.

Method 1 – Using simple loop

You can use while read loop to read a file content line by line and store into a variable.

#!/bin/bash
# A shell script to read file line by line

filename="/var/log/xyz.log"

while read line
do
    # $line variable contains current line read from the file
    # display $line text on the screen or do something with it.

    echo "$line"
done < $filename

#!/bin/bash

# A shell script to read file line by line

filename="/var/log/xyz.log"

while read line

# $line variable contains current line read from the file

# display $line text on the screen or do something with it.

echo "$line"

done < $filename

Note – In above script line is a variable only. You can use any variable name in place of the line of your choice.

Method 2 – Using IFS

The IFS (Internal Field Separator) is a special shell variable used for splitting words and line based on its value. The default value is .

#!/bin/bash
# A shell script to read file line by line

filename="/var/log/xyz.log"

while IFS= read -r line
do
    # $line variable contains current line read from the file
    # display $line text on the screen or do something with it.

    echo "$line"
done < $filename