Wednesday, February 7, 2024

[SOLVED] Can IFS be changed locally in a Bash function?

Issue

I have a function that needs to change IFS for its logic:

my_func() {
  oldIFS=$IFS; IFS=.; var="$1"; arr=($var); IFS=$oldIFS
  # more logic here
}

Can I declare IFS as local IFS inside the function so that I don't need to worry about backing its current value and restore later?


Solution

It appears to work as you desire.

#!/bin/bash
changeIFSlocal() {
    local IFS=.
    echo "During local: |$IFS|"
}
changeIFSglobal() {
    IFS=.
    echo "During global: |$IFS|"
}
echo "Before: |$IFS|"
changeIFSlocal
echo "After local: |$IFS|"
changeIFSglobal
echo "After global: |$IFS|"

This prints:

Before: |
|
During local: |.|
After local: |
|
During global: |.|
After global: |.|


Answered By - Barmar
Answer Checked By - David Marino (WPSolving Volunteer)
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