On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 12:56:00PM -0600, John Maier wrote:
> > Try IFS=`echo;echo`. And don't ask why ;-)
> > 
> > HTH, Jukka
> 
> Worked!
> 
> I am serriously resisting the urge to ask...

Because the shell strips the trailing newline off the `...` data. So:
$ IFS=`echo`
leaves IFS empty, whereas:
$ IFS=`echo;echo;`
leaves IFS containing "\n;"
You actually want:
$ IFS='
'
then IFS will contain "\n".

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk