possible non-posix behaviour with sh/bash and IFS

[walter harms]

Configuration Information [Automatically generated, do not change]:
Machine: i586
OS: linux
Compiler: gcc -I/usr/src/packages/BUILD/bash-3.0 
-L/usr/src/packages/BUILD/bash-3.0/../readline-5.0
Compilation CFLAGS:  -DPROGRAM='bash' -DCONF_HOSTTYPE='i586' 
-DCONF_OSTYPE='linux' -DCONF_MACHTYPE='i586-suse-linux' -DCONF_VENDOR='suse'
-DLOCALEDIR='/usr/share/locale' -DPACKAGE='bash' -DSHELL -DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -I.  
-I. -I./include -I./lib   -O2 -march=i586 -mtune=i686
-fmessage-length=0 -Wall -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g -D_GNU_SOURCE -Wall -pipe -g 
-fbranch-probabilities
uname output: Linux omnfr33 2.6.13-15.10-smp #1 SMP Fri May 12 16:21:47 UTC 
2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Machine Type: i586-suse-linux

Bash Version: 3.0
Patch Level: 16
Release Status: release

description:

according to this paper: http://www.unix.org/whitepapers/shdiffs.html

"If IFS is null, there is no separator, for example:

 $ IFS="
 $ set a b c
 $ echo "$*"
 abc
"

This does not work in ba/sh even when set -o posix is used there is also a 
testcase for that
non-posix behaviour.

note: i am working on porting the testcases to busybox ash. is anyone 
especially interested in testcases ?


re,
 walter