NAME

       shell-quote - quote arguments for safe use, unmodified in a shell command

SYNOPSIS

       shell-quote [switch]... arg...

DESCRIPTION

       shell-quote lets you pass arbitrary strings through the shell so that they won't be
       changed by the shell.  This lets you process commands or files with embedded white space
       or shell globbing characters safely.  Here are a few examples.

EXAMPLES

       ssh preserving args
           When running a remote command with ssh, ssh doesn't preserve the separate arguments it
           receives.  It just joins them with spaces and passes them to "$SHELL -c".  This
           doesn't work as intended:

               ssh host touch 'hi there'           # fails

           It creates 2 files, hi and there.  Instead, do this:

               cmd=`shell-quote touch 'hi there'`
               ssh host "$cmd"

           This gives you just 1 file, hi there.

       process find output
           It's not ordinarily possible to process an arbitrary list of files output by find with
           a shell script.  Anything you put in $IFS to split up the output could legitimately be
           in a file's name.  Here's how you can do it using shell-quote:

               eval set -- `find -type f -print0 | xargs -0 shell-quote --`

       debug shell scripts
           shell-quote is better than echo for debugging shell scripts.

               debug() {
                   [ -z "$debug" ] || shell-quote "debug:" "$@"
               }

           With echo you can't tell the difference between "debug 'foo bar'" and "debug foo bar",
           but with shell-quote you can.

       save a command for later
           shell-quote can be used to build up a shell command to run later.  Say you want the
           user to be able to give you switches for a command you're going to run.  If you don't
           want the switches to be re-evaluated by the shell (which is usually a good idea, else
           there are things the user can't pass through), you can do something like this:

               user_switches=
               while [ $# != 0 ]
               do
                   case x$1 in
                       x--pass-through)
                           [ $# -gt 1 ] || die "need an argument for $1"
                           user_switches="$user_switches "`shell-quote -- "$2"`
                           shift;;
                       # process other switches
                   esac
                   shift
               done
               # later
               eval "shell-quote some-command $user_switches my args"

OPTIONS

       --debug
           Turn debugging on.

       --help
           Show the usage message and die.

       --version
           Show the version number and exit.

AVAILABILITY

       The code is licensed under the GNU GPL.  Check http://www.argon.org/~roderick/ or CPAN for
       updated versions.

AUTHOR

       Roderick Schertler <roderick@argon.org>