read from a file in bourne shell

[Jeffrey Youngstrom]

I want to set some variables in a Bourne shell script from the contents
of a file while still being able to prompt a real time user for input.

The file looks like this:

1
0
foo
8
2

(i.e. one word per line)

Things I've tried:
    spawning a subshell and redirecting its input from the file.
        But variables not available outside the subshell, and can't
        get user input from inside the subshell.

    hokey kludges using "for var in `cat file`" and/or awk
        But ugly. (so to speak... :-)

Is there a good way to set variables from file contents in Bourne?
As far as I can tell, Bourne doesn't support arrays?

Please send email.  I'll summarize for interested parties (email me)

Thanks,
jeffy
--
Jeffrey Youngstrom ...!{decwrl,sun}!teda!jeffy or jeffy at altair.csustan.edu
Teradyne EDA  West  |  5155 Old Ironsides Drive  |  Santa Clara, CA  95054
                I have no idea what I'm doing out of bed.