shellscript reading varibales from a file
===

I am new to shell scripting. I am working on a project where the requirement is like one script file will set the variables and another script file has to get those variables and manipulate it. I am storing the variables from first script into a file and in second script file I am reading it.

In first script file, first.sh , I am doing like

echo "a=6" > test.dat
echo "b=7" >> test.dat
echo "c=8" >> test.dat

I use > for the first variable where it overwrites and for the next values it appends. So the file will have the latest values always. 

Is there any better approach than this ?

In the second script file how can read and fill the appropriate values ?
