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From: wib@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de (Willi Burmeister)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: problems with 'while read'
Message-ID: <3635@dagobert.informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de>
Date: 6 May 91 16:14:52 GMT
Organization: Universitaet Kiel, Germany
Lines: 53


Just a simple (??) question: Why does this small program not work?

------ cut here ------ cut here ------ cut here ------ cut here ------
#!/bin/sh
#

cat << EOF > hugo
one
two
three
four
EOF

while read num
do
  echo "do something with <$num>"
  last=$num
done < hugo

echo "last num = <$last>"
------ cut here ------ cut here ------ cut here ------ cut here ------ 

the output will always be:

do something with <one>
do something with <two>
do something with <three>
do something with <four>
last num = <>


What I want is:

do something with <one> 
do something with <two> 
do something with <three> 
do something with <four> 
last num = <four> 
            ^^^^

Any help would be much appreciated.
thanks in advance


Willi


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