Read (Unix)

is a command found on Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. It reads a line of input from standard input or a file passed as an argument to its  flag, and assigns it to a variable. It is built into shells such as Bash.

Usage
The  command is used to take input from the user in shell scripts. It has a built in $REPLY variable for storing replies, but can save to other variables.

Configuration
The command supports several options via flags. It can be configured to issue a message using -p instead of needing to use the  command. It can also superficially hide text using the -s flag, limit the amount of characters with -n, store the result in an array with -a, and timeout after a certain amount of time with -t.