read
is a command found on
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
and
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s such as
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
. It reads a line of input from
standard input
In computer programming, standard streams are interconnected input and output communication channels between a computer program and its environment when it begins execution. The three input/output (I/O) connections are called standard input (stdin ...
or a file passed as an argument to its
-u
flag, and assigns it to a variable.
In
Unix shell
A Unix shell is a command-line Interpreter (computing), interpreter or shell (computing), shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command language and a scripting langua ...
s, like
Bash
Bash or BASH may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992
* ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961
* '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych
* ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game
* "Bash" ('' ...
, it is present as a shell built in function, and not as a separate executable file.
References
Standard Unix programs
Unix process- and task-management-related software
IBM i Qshell commands
{{Unix-stub