Read a config file in BASH without using “source”

Question

I\'m attempting to read a config file that is formatted as follows:

USER = username
TARGET = arrows

I realize that if I got rid of the spaces,

Answer 1

The following script iterates over each line in your input file (vars in my case) and does a pattern match against =. If the equal sign is found it will use Parameter Expansion to parse out the variable name from the value. It then stores each part in it's own array, name and value respectively.

#!/bin/bash

i=0
while read line; do
  if [[ "$line" =~ ^[^#]*= ]]; then
    name[i]=${line%% =*}
    value[i]=${line#*= }
    ((i++))
  fi
done < vars

echo "total array elements: ${#name[@]}"
echo "name[0]: ${name[0]}"
echo "value[0]: ${value[0]}"
echo "name[1]: ${name[1]}"
echo "value[1]: ${value[1]}"
echo "name array: ${name[@]}"
echo "value array: ${value[@]}"

Input

$ cat vars
sdf
USER = username
TARGET = arrows
asdf
as23

Output

$ ./varscript
total array elements: 2
name[0]: USER
value[0]: username
name[1]: TARGET
value[1]: arrows
name array: USER TARGET
value array: username arrows