IFS=' 'when you do a "set". That's saying that $IFS is an actual newline inside backticks. IFS is a standard Bash environment variable, and they are all documented in "man" Bash, which is no longer in cLIeNUX Core. Changing IFS can effect how various things get parsed by, for example, the Bash "read" built-in. This can be very useful when you need to deal with things NOT on a per-line basis, but when you want to do these sorts of things you are crossing into awk territory.
RIGHTS
Copyright 1999 Richard Allen Hohensee
This file is released for redistribution only as part of an intact entire
cLIeNUX Core.