On Mon, Apr 30, 2001 at 05:44:46PM -0400, Matt Zimmerman wrote: > > I could read that as requiring that if IFS is unset, then you get > > "<space><tab><newline>" if you inspect its value, NOT the null string. > > I have to disagree with this interpretation. The sentence above specifies > that "the shell will behave _as if_ the value of IFS were..." (emphasis > added). This implies that IFS does not necessarily have any value at all, > and its value certainly should not be relied upon. If the intention were to > have a default value for the IFS variable, it would have been much more > straightforward to say > "If IFS is not set, the shell will assign it the value..." I think the difference here is that they wanted to hide IFS from the output of printenv and the like. So the shell really behaves like IFS was set to "<space><tab><newline>" but it is NOT really set. That's what I read into it anyway. cu Torsten
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