How to read fields into an array?

[Linda Walsh]

I tried setting a var as an array:

  declare -a var
and then doing a read

   read var

Is there a way to get arrays to work with read directly and
not doing something like a split on space into multiple lines and
use readarray w/that? 

It seems like it would make sense if the "declare -a var"
actually had some effect on the subsequent read as
it does in subsequent assignments, for example.

Is there some syntax in the read to do it?  (${a[@]} ?