title: Do here-strings undergo word-splitting?
body: <p>Quoting <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Here-Strings" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bash Reference Manual</a> and <code>man bash</code> (version 4.3):</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><code>[<i>n</i>]&lt;&lt;&lt; <i>word</i></code></p>
    
    <p>The <em><code>word</code></em> undergoes brace expansion, tilde expansion, parameter and
    variable expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and
    quote removal. Pathname expansion and word splitting are not
    performed.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The <code>word</code> should not undergo word-splitting. However, using this simple code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var="a    b"
  
  cat &lt;&lt;&lt; $var
  #output:
  #a b
  
  cat &lt;&lt;&lt; "$var"
  #output:
  #a    b
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What am I missing? Does this depend on the version of <code>bash</code> or is there a mistake in the manual? I am using <code>GNU bash, version 4.3.48</code>.</p>