Shell Programming and Scripting

Ok, so I'm playing around with delimters and reading files. and I came across this behaviour that I thought was a bit odd, regarding how the set command takes values... If I run this: IFS=$'-' #Assigns the - as the default delimiter for bash set I-love-my-gf-a-lot #uses set to put a bunch of text into memory. separated by the - echo $1 I love my gf a lot # this is the output when doing echo $1 echo $2 # I get no output. Nothing was assigned to it. Same goes for $3, $4, or $5... The entire line, (minus the dashes) was put into $1. But when I assign the same exact line to a variable like this: cheesy_line="I-love-my-gf-a-lot" set $cheesy_line echo $1 I echo $3 my echo $5 a etc... Why is this? Shouldn't pasing the full line to set be the same thing as setting it as a variable and then passing it to set? Why does the output stay on one line and placed into one variable ($1) with the first method? But when I assign it to a variable, and then pass it to set, does it break it up into the different $1, $2, $3, etc..?

Moderator's Comments:

Please use CODE tags as required by forum rules. The way you have written the above, we cannot tell what is supposed to be the text in your script from text describing how the script is, or is not, working as desired.

Please show us your entire script, the command line(s) you're using to invoke it, and the output you're getting (all using CODE tags). I would guess that quoting is causing you problems, but without seeing exactly what you're doing, I'm only guessing.