Read multiple variables from file

Question

I need to read a file that has lines like

user=username1
pass=password1

How can I read multiple lines like this into separate variables like username and password?

Would I use awk or grep? I have found ways to read lines into variables with grep but would I need to read the file for each individual item?

The end result is to use these variables to access a database via the command line. So I need to be able to read, store and use these values in other commands.

Answer 1

if the process which generates the file is safe and has shell syntax just source the file.

. ./file

Otherwise the file can be processes before to add quotes

perl -ne 'if (/^([A-Za-z_]\w*)=(.*)/) {$k=$1;$v=$2;$v=~s/\x27/\x27\\\x27\x27/g;print "$k=\x27$v\x27\n";}' <file >file2
. ./file2

Answer 2

If you want to use awk then

Input

$ cat file 
user=username1
pass=password1

Reading

$ user=$(awk -F= '$1=="user"{print $2;exit}' file)
$ pass=$(awk -F= '$1=="pass"{print $2;exit}' file)

Output

$ echo $user
username1
$ echo $pass
password1

Answer 3

file.txt :

user=username1
pass=password1
user=username2
pass=password2
user=username3
pass=password3

Do to avoid browsing several times the file file.txt :

#!/usr/bin/env bash

func () {
    echo "user:$1 pass:$2"
}

i=0
while IFS='' read -r line; do
    if [ $i -eq 0 ]; then
        i=1
        user=$(echo ${line} | cut -f2 -d'=')
    else
        i=0
        pass=$(echo ${line} | cut -f2 -d'=')
        func "$user" "$pass"
    fi
done < file.txt

Output:

user:username1 pass:password1
user:username2 pass:password2
user:username3 pass:password3

Answer 4

You could use a loop for your file perhaps, but this is probably the functionality you're looking for.

$ echo 'user=username1' | awk -F= '{print $2}'
username1

Using the -F flag sets the delimiter to = and we select the 2nd item from the row.