BASH - Read in config file with multiple instances of the same "variable"

Question

I'm trying to read a config file, and then place the "section" of configs into an array in a bash script, and then run a command off that, and then reitterate through the configs again, and continue to do this until the end of the config file.

Here's a sample config file:

PORT="5000"
USER="nobody"
PATH="1"
OPTIONS=""

PORT="5001"
USER="nobody"
PATH="1"
OPTIONS=""

PORT="5002"
USER="nobody"
PATH="1"
OPTIONS=""

I want the bash script to read in the first "section", bring it into the script, and run the following:
scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS

HOWEVER, I want it to, based on how many "sections" there are in the config file, to take each iteration of a "section", and run the command with its corresponding configuration settings and apply it to the final command. So if it were to read in the config file from above, the output would be:

scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS
scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS
scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS

Which in turn would look like:

scriptname -p 5000 -u nobody -P 1 -o ""
scriptname -p 5001 -u nobody -P 1 -o ""
scriptname -p 5002 -u nobody -P 1 -o ""

Thanks in advanced.

Answer 1

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 script.cfg" >&2
    exit 1
fi

function runscript() {
    scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS
}

while read LINE; do
    if [[ -n $LINE ]]; then
        declare "$LINE"
    else
        runscript
    fi
done < "$1"

runscript

---

If you want to run the scripts in the background simultaneously, try this:

function runscript() {
    nohup scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o $OPTIONS &> /dev/null &
}

The & at the end makes them run in the background and nohup ensures they're not killed when the shell exits. The net effect is to turn the scripts into daemons so they'll run continuously in the background regardless of what happens to the parent script.

Answer 2

Assuming there is only one empty line between sections:

cat <yourfile> | while read ; do
    if [ -z "$REPLY" ] ; then
        scriptname -p $PORT -u $USER -P $PATH -o "$OPTIONS" 
    else
        eval "$REPLY" # NOTE: eval is evil
    fi
done

Answer 3

#!/bin/bash

awk 'BEGIN{ FS="\n";RS=""}
{
  for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){
   gsub(/.[^=]*=|\042/,"",$i)
  }
  print "scriptname -p "$1" -u "$2" -P "$3" -o "$4
}' file | bash