read in bash on whitespace-delimited file without empty fields collapsing

Question

I\'m trying to read a multi-line tab-separated file in bash. The format is such that empty fields are expected. Unfortunately, the shell is collapsing together field separat

Answer 1

Here's a fast and simple function I use that avoids calling external programs or restricting the range of input characters. It works in bash only (I guess).

If it is to allow for more variables than fields, though, it needs to be modified along Charles Duffy's answer.

# Substitute for `read -r' that doesn't merge adjacent delimiters.
myread() {
        local input
        IFS= read -r input || return $?
        while [[ "$#" -gt 1 ]]; do
                IFS= read -r "$1" <<< "${input%%[$IFS]*}"
                input="${input#*[$IFS]}"
                shift
        done
        IFS= read -r "$1" <<< "$input"
}