[TriLUG] Changing the delimiter in bash - modify IFS env variable

[jonc at nc.rr.com]

I was writing a quick report using a bash script that handled names (with spaces in them) and thinking... "screw this, I should use python - at least then I could set my delimiter and then spaces won't screw me up!"

... and then the magic hit me, "Hay, I bet I can set my delimiter in bash. I'll bet its just some environment variable."   And it is.

Bash uses IFS to tell it what acts as a separator when doing certain bash functions (most notably "for").
It defaults (on my boxen) to:
   IFS=$' 	
'
That's: space, tab, and new-line.
Since I've got a list of names separated by commas (and containing spaces), I modified it to:
   IFS=$',	
'
And my for statements parce the names out just fine...

=== Bad parcing of names ===
#! /bin/bash
SALESREPS="Cob Ball,Moe Adnol,Faun Steamer"
for i in $SALESREPS; do
   echo $i 
done;

   Cob
   Ball,Moe
   Adnol,Faun
   Steamer

=== Good parcing of names ===
#! /bin/bash
IFS=$',	
'
SALESREPS="Cob Ball,Moe Adnol,Faun Steamer"
for i in $SALESREPS; do
   echo $i 
done;

   Cob Ball
   Moe Adnol
   Faun Steamer

===
And now, here is proof of my own stubborn stupidity...
  http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/Week-of-Mon-20060522/042397.html

(which I read last year and then promptly deleted :-)
Thanks anyway, Chander Ganesan.

Jon