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From: brandon@tdi2.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Shell & IFS
Message-ID: <140@tdi2.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Feb-87 11:09:20 EST
Article-I.D.: tdi2.140
Posted: Wed Feb 25 11:09:20 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Feb-87 05:33:42 EST
References: <4560@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: brandon@tdi2.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards
Organization: Tridelta Industries, Inc., Mentor, OH
Lines: 38

Expires:

Quoted from <4560@brl-adm.ARPA> ["Make is Buggy"], by rbj@icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim)...
+---------------
|    ]>Furthermore, it is a botch to *import* SHELL from the environment;
|    ]>this causes Makefiles to work differently for people with different
|    ]>login shells!  "make" should NOT import SHELL.
+---------------

AMEN!  Plexus ships a buggy csh with System V; I use it.  Mix it with make
and KABOOM!  I'm not happy with make.

+---------------
|    ]And it *certainly* should not attempt to import things like IFS!
| 
| Well, John Mashey once suggested asking `why' before flaming, and since
| someone brought it up, *** why does IFS even exist *** ?
+---------------

It's a kludgy way to do things that can be done in other ways (albeit more
slowly).  Example:

IFS=':
' # newline and colon
while read name pass uid gid comment home shell; do
	# do something with them
done < /etc/passwd

This is the ONLY way I've seen it used; frankly, I use "awk" if I want to
process a file in this way anyway, so I see no real use for IFS.

++Brandon
-- 
``for is he not of the Children of Luthien?  Never shall that line fail, though
the years may lengthen beyond count.''  --J. R. R. Tolkien

Brandon S. Allbery	           UUCP: cbatt!cwruecmp!ncoast!tdi2!brandon
Tridelta Industries, Inc.         CSNET: ncoast!allbery@Case
7350 Corporate Blvd.	       INTERNET: ncoast!allbery%Case.CSNET@relay.CS.NET
Mentor, Ohio 44060		  PHONE: +1 216 255 1080 (home) +1 216 974 9210