Question on the IFS variable (not a FreeBSD question)

[Robert Huff]

Rakhesh Sasidharan writes:

>  I understand that the default value of the IFS variable in bash
>  is "space, tab, newline".

	I believe this to be correct.

>  For a script I am playing around with, I want to change IFS to be 
>  just newline. I tried the obvious like
>  
>  IFS="\n"
>  -or-
>  IFS='\n'
>  
>  but that doesn't seem to do the trick coz then the letter "n"
>  ends up being the separator.
>  
>  A bit of Google searching got me the solution too. That I must set IFS this 
>  way:
>  
>  IFS=$'\n'

	It is also possible to use:

IFS="
"

	with the default shell; this has been (personally) confirmed
within the least few weeks.


				Robert Huff