On Sat, Jun 02 2012, Tomi Ollila <tomi.ollila@iki.fi> wrote:
> I tried some alternatives on command line:
>
> $ readonly FOO1=$IFS
> $ echo "$FOO1" | od -f x1
> 0000000 0a
> 0000001
>
> $ readonly FOO2="$IFS" 
> $ echo "$FOO2" | od -f x1
> 0000000 20 09 0a 0a
> 0000004
>
> $ FOO3=$IFS
> $ readonly FOO3
> $ echo "$FOO4" | od -f x1
> 0000000 20 09 0a 0a
> 0000004

I think there must have been some copy/paste or transcription error
here?  FOO4 isn't something that you had previous set (or at least not
in what is shown).

In any event, it's clear from your second example that all we needed to
do was just quote the IFS when saving.  That fixed the problem for me,
so I submitted a patch.  I'm ashamed I didn't just see that solution
right off the bat.  Thanks for the inspiration, Tomi.

jamie.