sys-log:

By default when using a for loop in bash the field separator is set to a space.

Example:

[bcane@bcane ~]$ for x in list:like:this; do echo $x; done
list:like:this

One of the cool things about bash is that you can change this by setting a simple variable $IFS

[bcane@bcane ~]$ IFS=”:”
[bcane@bcane ~]$ for x in list:like:this; do echo $x; done
list like this