Bash – FS (Internal Field Separator) function as a single separator for multiple consecutive delimiter chars

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Parsing an array using IFS with non-whites space values creates empty elements.
Even using tr -s to shrink multiple delims to a single delim isn't enough.
An example may explain the issue more clearly..
Is there a way to achieve "normal" results via a tweaking of IFS (is there an associated setting to change IFS's behaviour? …. ie. To act the same as the default whitespace IFS.

var=" abc  def   ghi    "
echo "============== IFS=<default>"
arr=($var)
for x in ${!arr[*]} ; do
   echo "# arr[$x] \"${arr[x]}\""
done
#
sfi="$IFS" ; IFS=':'
set -f # Disable file name generation (globbing)
       # (This  data won't "glob", but unless globbing     
       #  is actually needed, turn if off, because   
       #  unusual/unexpected combinations of data can glob!
       #  and they can do it in the most obscure ways...  
       #  With IFS, "you're not in Kansas any more! :)  
var=":abc::def:::ghi::::"
echo "============== IFS=$IFS"
arr=($var)
for x in ${!arr[*]} ; do
   echo "# arr[$x] \"${arr[x]}\""
done
echo "============== IFS=$IFS and tr"
arr=($(echo -n "$var"|tr -s "$IFS"))
for x in ${!arr[*]} ; do
   echo "# arr[$x] \"${arr[x]}\""
done
set +f     # enable globbing 
IFS="$sfi" # re-instate original IFS val
echo "============== IFS=<default>"

Here is the output 

============== IFS=<default>
# arr[0] "abc"
# arr[1] "def"
# arr[2] "ghi"
============== IFS=:
# arr[0] ""
# arr[1] "abc"
# arr[2] ""
# arr[3] "def"
# arr[4] ""
# arr[5] ""
# arr[6] "ghi"
# arr[7] ""
# arr[8] ""
# arr[9] ""
============== IFS=: and tr
# arr[0] ""
# arr[1] "abc"
# arr[2] "def"
# arr[3] "ghi"
============== IFS=<default>

Best Answer

To remove multiple (non-space) consecutive delimiter chars, two (string/array) parameter expansions can be used. The trick is to set the IFS variable to the empty string for the array parameter expansion.

This is documented in man bash under Word Splitting:

Unquoted implicit null arguments, resulting from the expansion of parameters that have no values, are removed.

(
set -f
str=':abc::def:::ghi::::'
IFS=':'
arr=(${str})
IFS=""
arr=(${arr[@]})

echo ${!arr[*]}

for ((i=0; i < ${#arr[@]}; i++)); do 
   echo "${i}: '${arr[${i}]}'"
done
)
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