Read string into a variable until a certain word in BASH

Question

I have a program that outputs something like this:

stuff=Some text with spaces and other $pecial characters stuff2=1 stuff3=0

I am trying to get all of that string up until stuff2=1 in a variable, so the variable would be:

stuff=Some text with spaces and other $special characters

I have tried this:

for word in $output
while [ $word != "stuff2=1" ]
do
   var+=" "$word
done
done

but all I get is "stuff=Some" over and over again.

Answer 1

How about this?

stuff='Some text with spaces and other $pecial characters stuff2=1 stuff3=0'

var=""
for word in $stuff
do
  if [ "$word" == "stuff2=1" ]
     then
    break
  fi
  if [ "$var" != "" ]
  then
    var="${var} "
  fi
  var="${var}${word}"
done
echo "$var"