linux - Bash: How to tokenize a string variable?

Question

If I have a string variable who's value is "john is 17 years old" how do I tokenize this using spaces as the delimeter? Would I use awk?

Answer 1

$ string="john is 17 years old"
$ tokens=( $string )
$ echo ${tokens[*]}

For other delimiters, like ';'

$ string="john;is;17;years;old"
$ IFS=';' tokens=( $string )
$ echo ${tokens[*]}