Why is read ignoring stdin

Question

Why manually inputing values as an array using read command works :

read -a words
## type values here and then enter

But this does not :

printf "uno\tdos\n" | read -a spanishWords
echo "${spanishWords[0]}" ## This is empty

This is [BashFAQ #24](https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/024). — Charles Duffy, Nov 18 '19 at 20:11

David Schwartz · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-18T20:24:20.273

2

They both work just fine. The problem is that your second example calls read in a separate process. In that separate process, spanishWords contains the correct contents. But that doesn't help you.

This would work:

printf "uno\tdos\n" |
   ( read -a spanishWords;
     echo "${spanishWords[0]}" )

edited Nov 18 '19 at 20:24

answered Nov 18 '19 at 20:07

David Schwartz

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I wouldn't say "necessarily"; `ksh` doesn't, nor does `bash` if you are using the `lastpipe` option. – chepner Nov 18 '19 at 20:18
@chepner Thanks. I took that word out. – David Schwartz Nov 18 '19 at 20:24

Why is **read** ignoring stdin

1 Answers1

Why is read ignoring stdin