NAME

       String::ShellQuote - quote strings for passing through the shell

SYNOPSIS

           $string = shell_quote @list;
           $string = shell_quote_best_effort @list;
           $string = shell_comment_quote $string;

DESCRIPTION

       This module contains some functions which are useful for quoting strings which are going
       to pass through the shell or a shell-like object.

       shell_quote [string]...
           shell_quote quotes strings so they can be passed through the shell.  Each string is
           quoted so that the shell will pass it along as a single argument and without further
           interpretation.  If no strings are given an empty string is returned.

           If any string can't be safely quoted shell_quote will croak.

       shell_quote_best_effort [string]...
           This is like shell_quote, excpet if the string can't be safely quoted it does the best
           it can and returns the result, instead of dying.

       shell_comment_quote [string]
           shell_comment_quote quotes the string so that it can safely be included in a shell-
           style comment (the current algorithm is that a sharp character is placed after any
           newlines in the string).

           This routine might be changed to accept multiple string arguments in the future.  I
           haven't done this yet because I'm not sure if the strings should be joined with blanks
           ($") or nothing ($,).  Cast your vote today!  Be sure to justify your answer.

EXAMPLES

           $cmd = 'fuser 2>/dev/null ' . shell_quote @files;
           @pids = split ' ', `$cmd`;

           print CFG "# Configured by: ",
                       shell_comment_quote($ENV{LOGNAME}), "\n";

BUGS

       Only Bourne shell quoting is supported.  I'd like to add other shells (particularly
       cmd.exe), but I'm not familiar with them.  It would be a big help if somebody supplied the
       details.

AUTHOR

       Roderick Schertler <roderick@argon.org>

SEE ALSO

       perl(1).