Ever wanted to parse /etc/oratab but ignore all the comments and blank lines? So did I. Here’s how …

I can’t claim all the credit for this, it is based on something I was doing plus a bit of “stolen” code from SLES.

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OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS=:
grep -v '^\(#\|$\)' /etc/oratab        |\
while read ORASID ORAHOME AUTOSTART
do
        ## Do what you like here with
        ##  $ORASID, $ORAHOME and $AUTOSTART ##
done
IFS=$OLDIFS

Cheers,
Norm.