simultaneous file reading in shell

[Steven List]

> 
> 
>   Three important though simple scripts, to read simultaneously as many as six
> different files within any shell script, one line after the other, are listed
> below with samples of their use. I developped these scripts from an idea that
> hit me when reading my "Bible", "The Unix system" from Bourne; at page 213,
> an example of a shell script reading in a file is discussed, and I began to
> think about some tricky use of file descriptors.
> 
> 	Andre DIDELOT			...!mcvax!cernvax!cui!andre
> 	University of Geneva		DIDELOT at CGEUGE51.BITNET

First - bravo, Andre!!!  Having recently been impressed with chapter 8
of the same book (particularly the Tennis Ladder System), I am trying to
become more intelligent in the use of "exec" (particularly for file
descriptor reassignment).

Also revelatory was the examples of use of the "eval" builtin.  I had
not been able to figure it out from sh(1).

If anyone else out there has some good tricks/techniques that you'd be
willing to share, please!

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