builtin read command fails with pipe input

[Cristi Prundeanu]

Hello,

I have read the documentation over and over for the builtin 'read' command.
It should read and assign variables whether the standard input is a terminal
or a pipe. Well, the following has no effect on the content of variable
'testvar':

athos@sara:~$ echo '1 2 3' | read testvar

Is this a bug or did I understand something wrong?
I also tried echo -e '1 2 3\r' and echo -e '1 2 3\n' and had the same result.
The return code from read is 0 though, and read -t 3 returns immediately (no
timeout occurs).

Here is the output from bashbug regarding the machine configuration:
========
Machine: i386
OS: linux-gnu
Compiler: gcc
Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='i386'
 -DCONF_OSTYPE='linux-gnu' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='i386-redhat-linux-gnu'
 -DCONF_VENDOR='redhat' -DSHELL -DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -D_GNU_SOURCE
 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -I.  -I. -I./include -I./lib -I/usr/include -O2
 -march=i386 -mcpu=i686
uname output: Linux sara.saratoga.ro 2.2.19-7.0.1 #1 Tue Apr 10 01:56:16 EDT
2001 i686 unknown
Machine Type: i386-redhat-linux-gnu

Bash Version: 2.04
Patch Level: 11
Release Status: release
=======

Regards,
Cristi Prundeanu