Re: protect spaces and/or globs

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

On 2021-02-09 1:08 p.m., Peter Stephenson wrote:
>
>> In this case, actually, all you're doing is the equivalent of
>> a single array assignment.
>>
>> filespec=("$@")
>>
>> pws
It doesn't seem to solve the problem.  Here's a real example:

$ g ,H 'execute' 'g,46,w4 now default' f
... The search string is 'execute' and the two target files follow. But 
after zsh is finished stripping of the quotes the final grep command 
looks like this:

GREP_COLOR='01;33' grep --color=always -iFIHn -d skip -- 'execute' 
g,46,w4 now default  f

... and of course it won't work due to the spaces.  Input via an array 
seems to make no difference.  (Unless I'm doing it wrong.)  If I do this:

$ g ,H 'execute' 'g,46,w4\ now\ default' f
... I get:

GREP_COLOR='01;33' grep --color=always -iFIHn -d skip -- 'execute' 
g,46,w4\ now\ default  f
... which works fine.  Finally,:

$ g ,H 'execute' g,46,w4\ now\ default f
... gives:

GREP_COLOR='01;33' grep --color=always -iFIHn -d skip -- 'execute' 
g,46,w4 now default  f
... and again the unquoted spaces screw it up.  Is there any way to 
force the single quotes to pass through as literals?

Lawrence:

It's all rather complicated, my wrappers do all sorts of mischief before 
calling grep.

BTW Peter I'm sure enjoying your User's Guide.  It should fortify me 
enough to finally read the manual.