#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).