How to split one string into multiple strings separated by at least one space in bash shell?

Question

I have a string containing many words with at least one space between each two. How can I split the string into individual words so I can loop through them?

The stri

Answer 1

Just use the shells "set" built-in. For example,

set $text

After that, individual words in $text will be in $1, $2, $3, etc. For robustness, one usually does

set -- junk $text
shift

to handle the case where $text is empty or start with a dash. For example:

text="This is          a              test"
set -- junk $text
shift
for word; do
  echo "[$word]"
done

This prints

[This]
[is]
[a]
[test]