Trying to write "<<<" in ksh - unix

Question

I am having trouble with the code below:
IFS=: read c1 c2 c3 c4 rest <<< "$line"
Don't get me wrong this code works good but it doesn't seem to be used for ksh. I basically need to write the same code without the "<<<". There is not much info on the "<<<" online. If anybody has any ideas it would be much appreciated.
EDIT:
Ok code is as follows for the entire portion of programming:
m|M)
#Create Modify Message
clear
echo " Modify Record "
echo -en '\n'
echo -en '\n'
while true
do
echo "What is the last name of the person you would like to modify:"
read last_name
if line=$(grep -i "^${last_name}:" "$2")
then
oldIFS=$IFS
IFS=:
set -- $line
IFS=$oldIFS
c1=$1
c2=$2
c3=$3
c4=$4
shift; shift; shift; shift
rest="$*"
echo -e "Last Name: $1\nFirst Name: $2\nState: $4"
while true
do
echo "What would you like to change the state to?:"
read state
if echo $state | egrep -q '^[A-Z]{2}$'
then
echo "State: $state"
echo "This is a valid input"
break
else
echo "Not a valid input:"
fi
done
echo -e "Last Name: $c1\nFirst Name: $c2\nState: $state"
echo "State value changed"
break
else
echo "ERROR: $last_name is not in database"
echo "Would you like to search again (y/n):"
read modify_choice
case $modify_choice in [Nn]) break;; esac
fi
done
;;
Ok so everything works except for the
echo -e "Last Name: $c1\nFirst Name: $c2\nState: $state"
It will just show:
Last Name:
First Name:
State:
So I can see it is not adding it to my echo correctly.
FINAL EDIT
CODE:
#Case statement for modifying an entry
m|M)
#Create Modify Message
clear
echo " Modify Record "
echo -en '\n'
echo -en '\n'
while true
do
echo "What is the last name of the person you would like to modify:"
read last_name
if line=$(grep -i "^${last_name}:" "$2")
then
echo "$line" |
while IFS=: read c1 c2 c3 c4 rest; do
echo -e "Last Name: $c1\nFirst Name: $c2\nState: $c4"
last=$c1
first=$c2
done
while true
do
echo "What would you like to change the state to?:"
read state
if echo $state | egrep -q '^[A-Z]{2}$'
then
echo "State: $state"
echo "This is a valid input"
break
else
echo "Not a valid input:"
fi
done
echo -e "Last Name: $last\nFirst Name: $first\nState: $state"
echo "State value changed"
break
else
echo "ERROR: $last_name is not in database"
echo "Would you like to search again (y/n):"
read modify_choice
case $modify_choice in [Nn]) break;; esac
fi
done
;;

Answer 1

A here string in Bash
command <<<"string"
is basically equivalent to
echo "string" | command
with the obvious exception that the latter uses a pipeline, which means you cannot meaningfully use it with read in particular. A common workaround is to use the set builtin to capture tokens from a string or an external command:
oldIFS=$IFS
IFS=:
set -- $line # no quotes
IFS=$oldIFS
c1=$1
c2=$2
c3=$3
c4=$4
shift; shift; shift; shift
rest="$*" # loses spacing / quoting
Another workaround is to use a loop which iterates just once; this may seem elegant at first, but can lead to rather clunky code if the body of the pseudo-loop is long or complex.
echo "$line" |
while IFS=: read c1 c2 c3 c4 rest; do
: stuff which uses those variables
done
This works around the problem that echo stuff | read variable will run read in a child process and thus immediately forget the value of variable -- the body of the while loop is all the same process in which the read happened, and so the values of the variables it initialized are visible inside the loop.
Another, similar workaround is to delegate the reading and procesIng to a function;
process () {
IFS=: read c1 c2 c3 c4 rest
: stuff which uses those variables
}
echo "$line" | process
Whether this is clunky or elegant depends a lot on what happens in the function. If it's neatly encapsulated, it can be rather attractive; but if you end up passing in a bunch of unrelated variables (or worse, modifying globals inside the function!) it can be quite the opposite.