Operating on a list of files with spaces in the filenames

Question

I am writing a script that operates on all files within a directory structure. I want to pass the full filename and path to the commands in the script. I am using a for loop to do this. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get the "for" line to pass this info properly.
I have the following items on the desktop:
a folder with a lot of spaces in its filename
file1
file2
file3
If I run
for i in $( find * /Users/<username>/Desktop/ ) # where <username> = the correct shortname
I get:
Desktop/a
folder
with
a
lot
of
spaces
in
its
filename
Desktop/file1
Desktop/file2
Desktop/file3
If I run:
for i in "$( find * /Users/<username>/Desktop )"
I get every full path for each file on the Desktop, but they're all run together on a single line as below:
Desktop/a folder with a lot of spaces in its filename Desktop/file1 Desktop/file2 Desktop/file3
How do I get the following output?
Desktop/a folder with a lot of spaces in its filename
Desktop/file1
Desktop/file2
Desktop/file3

Answer 1

Actually I tend to avoid loops like the plague. Don't know why, and of course you can't always do that …
Something piped into a *while read variable* loop is one of my favorite things to do in a shell script, especially throw-away scripts:
find * /Users/<username>/Desktop/ | while read file
do
[[ "$file" = .app/ ]] && continue
echo "$file"
done
It gives me tons of control. I've started with a simple one-off throw-away script to do something quick, and find it so useful that I add things, and eventually I end up with a 5,000 line utility that I cannot live without. All from a simple while loop.
My other favorite throw-away script is where I have a list of objects (often a list of files). I use a here document on those:
while read file
do
if ! gvimdiff -f $file /path/to/prev/version/$file; then
exit # :cq will cause a non-zero gvimdiff exit code
fi
done <<EOD
file1.c
file2.c
file3.c
EOD