The following patches the bash shell version 4.1
so that its "read" built-in supports a new "-0" flag.
With this patch, "read -0" reads input values delimited by \0,
so that "read -0" has the same effect as:
 IFS='' read -r -d ''
Use this like "xargs -0", e.g.:
 find . -print0 | while read -0 file ...

For more information, see:
 http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html
 http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/fixing-unix-linux-filenames.html
 http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=245

This patch was developed by David A. Wheeler. This patch *itself*
is released to the public domain. However, the program it *patches*
is under a different license (currently GPLv3), so the combination
will be governed by the license of the software it's combined with.

(David A. Wheeler, 2010-05-03)

==============================================

--- builtins/read.def.orig	2009-10-08 11:35:46.000000000 -0400
+++ builtins/read.def	2010-05-03 21:43:56.000000000 -0400
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 This file is read.def, from which is created read.c.
 It implements the builtin "read" in Bash.
 
-Copyright (C) 1987-2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 1987-2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 
 This file is part of GNU Bash, the Bourne Again SHell.
 
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 
 $BUILTIN read
 $FUNCTION read_builtin
-$SHORT_DOC read [-ers] [-a array] [-d delim] [-i text] [-n nchars] [-N nchars] [-p prompt] [-t timeout] [-u fd] [name ...]
+$SHORT_DOC read [-0ers] [-a array] [-d delim] [-i text] [-n nchars] [-N nchars] [-p prompt] [-t timeout] [-u fd] [name ...]
 Read a line from the standard input and split it into fields.
 
 Reads a single line from the standard input, or from file descriptor FD
@@ -35,6 +35,8 @@
 If no NAMEs are supplied, the line read is stored in the REPLY variable.
 
 Options:
+  -0		Inputs delimited only by \0, same as IFS='' read -r -d ''.
+		Use like xargs -0, e.g., find . -print0 | while read -0 file
   -a array	assign the words read to sequential indices of the array
 		variable ARRAY, starting at zero
   -d delim	continue until the first character of DELIM is read, rather
@@ -159,6 +161,7 @@
   int size, i, nr, pass_next, saw_escape, eof, opt, retval, code, print_ps2;
   int input_is_tty, input_is_pipe, unbuffered_read, skip_ctlesc, skip_ctlnul;
   int raw, edit, nchars, silent, have_timeout, ignore_delim, fd;
+  int null_delim;
   unsigned int tmsec, tmusec;
   long ival, uval;
   intmax_t intval;
@@ -202,6 +205,7 @@
 
   i = 0;		/* Index into the string that we are reading. */
   raw = edit = 0;	/* Not reading raw input by default. */
+  null_delim = 0;
   silent = 0;
   arrayname = prompt = (char *)NULL;
   fd = 0;		/* file descriptor to read from */
@@ -217,10 +221,15 @@
   ignore_delim = 0;
 
   reset_internal_getopt ();
-  while ((opt = internal_getopt (list, "ersa:d:i:n:p:t:u:N:")) != -1)
+  while ((opt = internal_getopt (list, "0ersa:d:i:n:p:t:u:N:")) != -1)
     {
       switch (opt)
 	{
+	case '0':
+	  null_delim = 1;
+	  raw = 1;
+	  delim = '\0';
+	  break;
 	case 'r':
 	  raw = 1;
 	  break;
@@ -315,7 +324,7 @@
   if (ifs_chars == 0)		/* XXX - shouldn't happen */
     ifs_chars = "";
   /* If we want to read exactly NCHARS chars, don't split on IFS */
-  if (ignore_delim)
+  if (ignore_delim || null_delim)
     ifs_chars = "";
   for (skip_ctlesc = skip_ctlnul = 0, e = ifs_chars; *e; e++)
     skip_ctlesc |= *e == CTLESC, skip_ctlnul |= *e == CTLNUL;