This variable determines how Bash recognizes fields, or word boundaries when it interprets character strings.
$IFS defaults to whitespace (space, tab, and newline), but may be changed.
Have multiple characters as field separators.
IFS='[<listofchars>]'
Example using the read command:
IFS='[:=,]'; read foo bar moo car <<< '123:abc=345,def'; echo $foo $bar $moo $car
