I am trying to read a multi-line file into a variable, and the lines are getting concatenated together in one big line. So a file that contains line 1 line 2 line 3 line d line 6 would look like line 1 line 2 line 3 line d line 6 when I do: VAR=`cat data` echo $VAR Any ideas how to keep the newline inside of variables? Thanks! Greg