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.