hello, David-- IFS: internal field separator. used by the shell to delimit fields. by default, IFS is set to equal three things: tab, newline, and space. by manipulating this shell environment variable, commands can have odd (or even dangerous) results. suggestion: pick up the Kochan and Wood shell programming book. hope this helps! regards, --robert -- o robert owen thomas: Unix consultant. MAILER-DAEMON. user scratching post. o o e-mail: rthomas@pamd.cig.mot.com --or-- robt@cymru.com o o vox: 708.632.5768 fax: 708.632.5694 o o -- System Administrator's Dictionary -- o o user (you'zer) n. 1 A waste of system resources; an unwanted load o o on the processor(s) of a Unix system. 2 Someone who uses Caps Lock. o