Loop through a file with colon-separated strings

Question

I have a file that looks like this:

work:week:day:england:
work1:week:day:sweden:
work2:week:day::
..... 

Each time I loop through the list I w

Answer 1

You can use just bash for this: set IFS (internal field separator) to : and this will catch the fields properly:

while IFS=":" read -r a b c country
do
  echo "$country"
done < "file"

This returns:

england
sweden

This way you will be able to use $a for the first field, $b for the second, $c for the third and $country for the forth. Of course, adapt the number and names to your requirements.

All together:

while IFS=":" read a b c country
do
   if [[ "$country" == "england" ]]; then
      echo "this user works in England"
   else
      echo "You do not work in England"
   fi
done < "file"