Split string into an array in Bash

Question

In a Bash script I would like to split a line into pieces and store them in an array.

The line:

Paris, France, Europe

I would like

Answer 1

Sometimes it happened to me that the method described in the accepted answer didn't work, especially if the separator is a carriage return.
In those cases I solved in this way:

string='first line
second line
third line'

oldIFS="$IFS"
IFS='
'
IFS=${IFS:0:1} # this is useful to format your code with tabs
lines=( $string )
IFS="$oldIFS"

for line in "${lines[@]}"
    do
        echo "--> $line"
done