Re: protect spaces and/or globs

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 2021-02-10 2:14 p.m., Bart Schaefer wrote:
>
> You probably want (@q-) there, to minimize the number of quoted
> things, or (@q+) if you use a lot of unicode characters or control
> strings.

Seems to be working fine:


grep_wrapper ()
{
   grepargs=()
   sstring=
   while [[ $# -gt 0 ]] ; do
     arg="$1"
     shift
       grepargs+=( "$arg" )
   done
   sarray=(grep --color=always -i -- "${grepargs[@]}")

   print -sr -- "${(@q)sarray}"
   echo "\nwhat should be going to history:"
   print -r -- "${(@q)sarray}"

   echo "\neval:"
   eval "${(@q)sarray}"
}

     Test run:

9 /aWorking/Zsh/Source/Wk 3 $ . test; grep_wrapper 'on the current' 
'i,2,light edit' 'i,1,old stable'

what should be going to history:
grep --color=always -i -- on\ the\ current i,2,light\ edit i,1,old\ stable

eval:
i,2,light edit:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
i,1,old stable:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.

     Up arrow to recall and then re-execute:

9 /aWorking/Zsh/Source/Wk 3 $ grep --color=always -i -- on\ the\ current 
i,2,light\ edit i,1,old\ stable
i,2,light edit:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
i,1,old stable:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, the single quotes might be protected by double quoting as I had it 
before,
or we can use the magic of ' (q) ' to protect the spaces with 
backslashes even
though the single quotes themselves are gone.  Or, using ' (q-) ':

9 /aWorking/Zsh/Source/Wk 3 $ . test; grep_wrapper 'on the current' 
'i,2,light edit' 'i,1,old stable'

what should be going to history:
grep --color=always -i -- 'on the current' 'i,2,light edit' 'i,1,old stable'

eval:
i,2,light edit:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
i,1,old stable:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.

     Up arrow and re-execute:

9 /aWorking/Zsh/Source/Wk 3 $ grep --color=always -i -- 'on the current' 
'i,2,light edit' 'i,1,old stable'
i,2,light edit:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
i,1,old stable:Find any command named 'mtr*' on the current path.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seems cleaner, the single quotes are themselves protected or replaced so 
that
it not only runs right, it looks right; on recall it is  visually 
exactly the same.  And is it not
intuitive that, since single quotes already protect their string, if you 
add protection for the
single quotes themselves, you then have a perfectly protected string?  
It can be
passed from one function to the next unchanged.  This is the holy grail 
for me.
Any gotchas?  Or is that robust?  Can I use it everywhere?  Seems 
right.  The array
separates the arguments even if the might look like they run together in 
a string.

Thanks all.