Variables from while/read loops not seen outside of loop

[peter . kielbasiewicz]

I have various HPUX shell scripts that use the technique below and I do 
need to port them to Linux.
In HPUX's Posix shell it  is common practice to parse files like:

cat $file | while read line
                  do
                           ... parse lines and assign results to 
variables...
                  done
                  ... print formatted output of resulting variables...

Unfortunately this does not work at all in bash and I found the reason 
under FAQ E4.
All variables set inside the while/read loop are not passed to the parent 
shell and thus are unset when I want to print my formatted result

There are two questions here:
   1. How does HPUX manage to handle the problem 
   2. How can I write a solution in bash which gives the desired result



--
best regards

  Peter Kielbasiewicz