How to process every line in a file with a Unix/Linux shell script

Unix/Linux shell script FAQ: How do I write a Unix or Linux shell script where I “do something” for every line in a text file?

Solution: A simple way to process every line in a text file is to use a Unix/Linux while loop in combination with the Linux cat command, like this:

file=myfile.txt

# handle line breaks properly; needed when a line has spaces or tabs
IFS=$'\n'

for i in `cat $file`
do
  # add your logic here
  echo "$i"
done

Now all you have to do is put some code inside the while loop. For instance, I was just given a text file, and I wanted to add a colon character and some extra text after every line in the file. There are a million ways to do this, but a really easy way is to use this Unix shell script approach. I can’t share everything I just did, but part of my file processing looked like this:

file=myfile.txt

for i in `cat $file`
do
  # add your logic here
  echo "$i:\t\t (more text here)"
done

I then ran this script like this:

sh script.sh > output-file

Of course I could have also hard-coded the output file, but that’s up to you.

In summary, I hope this Unix/Linux shell script on how to process every line in a text file is helpful.