Splitting a String into an Array with a Custom Delimiter in a Bash Shell Script

Most high level languages have some sort of String.split([delimiter]) method to create an array of Strings tokenized by a user specified delimiter.  This is a simple way to convert a CSV into an array.

Here is a quick way to do that in a bash shell script:

#!/bin/bash

SOURCE_STRING='foo|blah|moo'
# Save the initial Interal Field Separator
OIFS="$IFS"
# Set the IFS to a custom delimiter
IFS='|'

read -a TOKENS <<< "${SOURCE_STRING}"
for i in "${TOKENS[@]}"
do
  echo "$i"
done

# Reset original IFS
IFS="$OIFS"