Hello again. I am deeply sorry, but i have one more difficulty that i fail to explain to myself. It *could* (small, very small case) be that this time the incorrectness really is on the side of bash. This script (do not care for the commented, they are great)
a() { echo $#,1="$1"/$1,2="$2"/$2,3="$3"/$3,4="$4" echo $#,'*'="$*"/$*, } set -- '' 'a' '' #IFS=\ ; echo "$*"$* $*; a "$*"$* $*;unset IFS #IFS= ; echo "$*"$* $*; a "$*"$* $*;unset IFS IFS=:; echo "$*"$* $*; a "$*"$* $*;unset IFS outputs :a: a a 4,1=:a:/ a ,2=a/a,3=/,4=a 4,*=:a::a::a/ a a a, I have a problem ^ with this space character of bash. My MUA outputs 4,*=:a::a::a/ a a a,$ instead for this case. I find this logical since before the resplit we have ":a:" + "a" + "" + "a", and the trailing ":" in the first only delimits the field of "a", so the next field will not join, causing the echo(1) argument to be separated by a space character. But no other space i see. Thanks, and a good night from Germany i wish, --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)