Hi to all I am desesperaly trying to get the data from a file with shell (Linux/Unix). It is a init file with this structure: "init.dat" 10. # x0 - initial position X -2. # y0 - initial position Y 0.02 # t0 - initial time ... and trying to put 10. in $x0, -2. in $y0... I have tried to use 'sed', 'awk', even loops.. But could not do it.. Can anyone Help? Thanx a lot B. (sorry for my english.. it is not my native language)

One solution is: set `cat file | cut -f1 -d'#'` x0=$1 y0=$2 t0=$3 The commands "cat init.dat | cut -f1 -d'#'" will return 10. -2. 0.02 In the cut command, -f1 say to return field 1 and the -d'#' says that fields are separated (delimited) by the # character. Then add the set command: set `cat file | cut -f1 -d'#'` (be sure that you use backquotes around the cat....-d'#' part. The backquotes cause the output of the quoted commands to be passed as parameters to the set command, which takes those values and puts them in variables $1, $2..., which you transfer to the variables that you want, or just use $1, $2 etc.

Thank you soo much !! I think my main problem was to use 'set' properly... Your technique works perfectly.. But because I was upset not to have succeeded it with awk, I have re-used your script, noticing where 'set' was, and tried again, just for fun, to do it with 'awk': set `awk '{print $1}' init.dat` x0=$1 y0=$2 ... And this also works.. Thanks again.. ZeBen