Why can't reset IFS variable?

Question

Show the current variable IFS:

echo $IFS |xxd
00000000: 0a  

I want to reset IFS as default value \t\n.

IFS=$' \t\n'
echo $IFS |xxd
00000000: 0a  

Why can't reset IFS variable?

Answer 1

You are resetting IFS correctly. The problem is in your echo. You should use echo -n "$IFS" | xxd.

Taking a look at man bash (emphasis mine):

Word Splitting

The shell scans the results of parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic expansion that did not occur within double quotes for word splitting.

The shell treats each character of IFS as a delimiter, and splits the results of the other expansions into words on these characters. If IFS is unset, or its value is exactly <space><tab><newline>, the default, then sequences of <space>, <tab>, and <newline> at the beginning and end of the results of the previous expansions are ignored, and any sequence of IFS characters not at the beginning or end serves to delimit words. If IFS has a value other than the default, then sequences of the whitespace characters space and tab are ignored at the beginning and end of the word, as long as the whitespace character is in the value of IFS (an IFS whitespace character). Any character in IFS that is not IFS whitespace, along with any adjacent IFS whitespace characters, delimits a field. A sequence of IFS whitespace characters is also treated as a delimiter. If the value of IFS is null, no word splitting occurs.

Since you did not double-quote IFS, it goes through the shell's word-splitting logic. Since IFS by definition contains the IFS characters within itself, they are ignored by the shell. Double-quoting prevents this.