mjhjmtu

I really don't know why my variables are getting messed up, but I suspect the cause is awk. I've condensed this problem down to a small script. I'm sorry I can't explain the problem better, but I literally don't know what is going on here. So here's the code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

QUE_FILE="/mnt/drive4-4/private/queue2.txt"
t1="$(cat "$QUE_FILE")"
echo "$t1"
echo "============"
echo "$t1" | while read i; do
 a1="$(echo "$i" | awk 'print $1')"
 a2="$(echo "$i" | awk 'print $2')"
 echo "a1 $a1 - a2 $a2"
 combined="$a1 $a2 11111111111"
 echo "combined $combined"
done

And the output:

AA BB CC
DD EE
============
a1 AA - a2 BB
combined AA BB 11111111111
a1 DD - a2 EE
 11111111111EE

The last line there should be:

combined DD EE 11111111111

while read A1 A2 REST; do echo -e "a1 $A1 - a2 $A2 ncombined $A1 $A2 111111" ; done < /mnt/drive4-4/private/queue2.txt

The diference is that awk prints the last on the row field with 'end of line', while the read AA BB CC saves the particular fields without 'end of line'. The REST saves the third (if any) and all the next fields. In echo -e the n breaks to the new line.