parse text file using awk and store in two variables

Question

I am trying to parse a file just like:

for NAME in `cat file.txt | grep name | awk '{print $2}'`
do
   echo " $NAME  "
   ......
done

file.txt content:

name John box 2
name Joe box 3
name May box 4

Then it will print:

John
Joe
May

But now I want to get box number in the meantime, I need to store name and box in two variables, how to do this?

Expected result:

echo "$NAME $BOX"
John 2
Joe 3
May 4

Copy/paste your script into http://shellcheck.net, fix the issues it tells you about, and also read [why-is-using-a-shell-loop-to-process-text-considered-bad-practice](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/169716/why-is-using-a-shell-loop-to-process-text-considered-bad-practice) as you probably have the wrong approach to your problem. — Ed Morton, Nov 16 '21 at 22:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 16 '21 at 11:11

You don't need Awk (or cat!) here at all.

grep '^name' file.txt |
while read -r _ name _ box;
do
   echo " $name $box "
   ......
done

Or, if you just want to print those two fields and not do anything with those variables, simply

awk '/^name/ { print $2, $4 }' file.txt

1 Answers1