Package: dash Version: dash: 0.5.7-3 This two commands:
dash -c 'echo " a b " | { read var; echo "<$var>"; }' bash -c 'echo " a b " | { read var; echo "<$var>"; }' produce: <a b > <a b> So, dash is not ignoring trailing spaces of values as defined in POSIX (and most shells do): http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/read.html - The remaining fields and their delimiters, *with trailing **IFS white space ignored* Even with a confirmed default value of IFS: $ printf "%s" "$IFS"|xxd -p 20090a