IFS

Internal Field Separator used for shell word splitting.

Last updated: 2026-05-12 Report error

Syntax

$echo "$IFS"

Examples

$oldIFS=$IFS; IFS=','; set -- $line; IFS=$oldIFS

Examples

$while IFS= read -r line; do ...; done < file.txt

Warnings

Always restore IFS changes to avoid side effects in scripts.

Typical use cases

Split CSV-like values without external tools.

Note Controls how the shell splits strings into fields.

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