something like this?

% xxx=`{echo test '-e '^$pathnames^' -o' 1 '!=' 1}
% $xxx


On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 5:31 PM dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com>
wrote:

> given
> pathnames = ( foo/a.txt bar/b.txt baz/c.txt )
>
> how do i construct arguments to test(1) that test for existence of
> those files in one go?
>
> wanted:
> test -e foo/a.txt -o -e bar/b.txt -o -e baz/c.txt
>
> assuming the pathnames may contain space characters.
>
>