[Help-bash] Readig multiple null-separated values

[František Kučera]

Hello,

in my Bash pipelines I sometimes pass data separated by null byte \0 and 
it is not only lists (like in find -print0) but 
matrices/tables/relations with fixed number of columns/attributes. The 
\0 is used to both separate values and records. The advantage is that 
the only forbidden character in values is the \0 and there are no 
collisions with text separators like ,;:\t\n etc. and no need for 
escaping or quoting. So it is a safe and simple way to pass structured 
data between processes.

To read a record in a cycle I wanted to use the read command with proper 
parameters first, but it seemed impossible and I ended with a custom 
function which work as I need:

read_nullbyte() { for v in "$@"; do export "$v"; read -r -d '' "$v"; done }

Usage example:

printf 'a\0aaa\0b\0bbb\0c\0ccc' | while read_nullbyte a1 a2; do echo 
a1=$a1 a2=$a2; done

(usually it is much more complicated and data are generated by some 
program/script, not a single printf call)

My question is:

1) Is there a simpler solution than my read_nullbyte() function?

2) Do you consider it generic and useful enough to make it built-in part 
of GNU Bash?

Franta