savetheWorld 1209314638 learn while read -r; do my-command "$REPLY"; done < inputfile # or, for BASH or posix sh: while IFS='' read -r line; do my-command "$line"; done < inputfile ferret 1221745501 forget ferret 1221745623 learn like !1 but without backslash interpretation or stripping of leading/trailing spaces: while read -r; do my-command "$REPLY"; done