[drothlis]

David A. Wheeler recommends setting IFS=$'\n\t' to handle spaces in filenames & variables.

http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html

[kazinator]

All those rules add up to: "avoiding writing anything complicated or general purpose in the shell language that is intended to be used by any user over any set of files; stick to handling known input materials which are closely associated with the script."