Sorry if you already noticed this: The latest devel push fixes the reported
field-splitting case but there is a regression with the fields getting
re-joined with spaces when performing an assignment:
$ set -- 1 2; IFS=; a=$* b=${*/}; printf '<%s>' "$a" "$b"
<12><1 2>
and with the expansion producing fields in the PE assignment case:
$ set -- 1 2; IFS=; unset a b; printf '<%s>' ${a=$*} ${b=${*/}}
<12><1><2>
Also, upon closer inspection, I suspect the unset IFS case in my report is
actually an issue with the a=$* case and that b=${*/} behaves correctly
(aside from not matching the a=$* behavior). The whitespace-trimming-when-
not-field-splitting thing is something that changed in bash-4.3:
bash-4.2$ unset IFS; set ' '; a=$*; printf '<%s>' "$a"
< >
bash-4.3$ unset IFS; set ' '; a=$*; printf '<%s>' "$a"
<>
Also also, the field-splitting issue is also present for arrays subscripted
with * when undergoing case modification or pattern substitution:
$ A=(1 2); IFS=; printf '<%s>' ${A[*]} ${A[*]/}
<1><2><12>
